Big projects, big reactions

The Acropolis Museum, the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center (SNFCC), the Thessaloniki Metro: three important projects that constitute landmarks of a modern and evolving Greece. The museum is visited by tens of thousands of tourists and represents one of Greece's most compelling arguments for the return of the Parthenon Sculptures. Residents from all over Attica flock to the SNFCC every weekend, and over in the northern port city, the metro fills Thessalonikians with pride and impresses visitors with the unique way it brings together the past and present.

What do these three projects have in common? That none would exist today if their fanatical opponents, if reactionary parties that say no to everything, had had their way. Costas Simitis was dragged through the courts for years after he was no longer prime minister because certain obsessive naysayers came after him...