The land goes to the state, the buildings to the entrepreneurs

The Greek state will retain ownership of public assets, which it will try to develop as part of the country's commitments under the updated memorandum and the decisions of the Summit for the extension of the repayment of the loans.

This is the basic philosophy that characterizes the bill for the institution of the surface, the basic principles of which were presented during the cabinet meeting by the minister of State Haris Pamboukis. While speaking to journalists after the meeting, he made clear that the buildings on state land will be given to the private sector for a specific period of time – the minister avoided clarifying whether there will be a limit to the duration of the concession. The bill will also set up the possibility of banks lending to private enterprises under this specific status.

In fact, the minister used an Indian proverb, which states that “we do not inherit our land by our ancestors, but we borrow it from our children”. He also made clear that the bill will provide for the change in the terms of land use upon returning real estate property to the private sector.

On his part, the Finance minister Giorgos Papakonstantinou, said that an action plan will have been prepared by the end of March for the development of real estate property, adding that the repayment extension basically removes the need to extract the 50 billion by 2021.

It is worth noting that Defence Minister Evangelos Venizelos estimated that the state property reaches 300% of GDP, thus the 50-billion limit can be achieved.