Tourism-related investments hit trouble in Greece

New York property developer Mike Angeliades has wanted to create a golf resort in his native Greece for a quarter of a century. But just when the plan seemed within reach, the past caught up with him. Three years ago Angeliades won a state-sanctioned competition to develop a beachfront property on Rhodes, the Aegean island he left as a teenager. Then last year the authorities dropped a bombshell. "The then culture minister... declared the whole area an archaeological site," he told Reuters. Now the project to invest up to 400 million euros ($470 million) is stalled. "We are still waiting for an answer from the ministry on what they plan to do."

Angeliades, who emigrated to the United States in 1960, is among a number of foreign investors ready to plow large sums into a country just emerging from economic depression, only to wonder if they're really welcome. Conflicts...