‘Stay away’

After eight years of being dragged through the courts, spending who knows how much money and having his reputation dragged through the mud, the former artistic director of what today is called Hellenic Festival SA - the company that organizes the Athens & Epidaurus Festival - was acquitted of all charges of financial mismanagement by an Athens court of appeals this week. Giorgos Loukos had been accused in 2015 of squandering state money and was ousted from his post by then culture minister Aristeidis Baltas.

The charges were based on the discovery of certain invoices that were paid twice, leading to a discrepancy of 2.7 million euros. Asked by Kathimerini about the cause of the discrepancy, Loukos' lawyer, Ilias Anagnostopoulos, said that due to staff shortages and a poor management structure (which is determined by the ministry), the artistic director also had to act as the...