ATHENS: Greece said it will on Tuesday relaunch the sale of a former airport in a privatisation that Athens expects will quickly unblock a new tranche of EU funding.
The government is to sign a memorandum of understanding for the sale of Athens’s former airport Hellinikon to a consortium made up of Al Maabar of Abu Dhabi, Chinese company Fosun and Greece’s Lamda, government spokeswoman Olga Gerovassili said.
The sale is valued at 915 million euros ($1 billion) and comes with a 99-year lease to build a tourist resort outside Athens.
The operation was suspended after Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras came to power in 2015.
Progress on the sale is “the final condition” set by Greece’s eurozone partners to unblock a 7.5-billion-euro tranche of fresh aid, which is now expected to be paid out next week, Gerovassili said.
The final agreement with the ex-airport’s buyers is expected for November, and negotiations are ongoing to ensure it is in the public interest, she said.
Eurozone ministers last month reached a vital deal to unlock urgent cash for Greece and give Athens access to 10.3 billion euros in bailout money that Greece needs to repay big loans to the European Central Bank (ECB) and International Monetary Fund (IMF) in July, having already fallen behind in paying for everyday government payments and wages.
They said at the time that privatisations had to be accelerated before the 7.5- billion tranche would be paid out this month.
The Greek government spokeswoman said Tuesday a few “technical” questions in talks with the EU, including concerning the sale of five percent in telecom operator OTE to Deutsche Telekom, are still pending but they “should be settled before the payment”.
Renowned architect Norman Foster and his firm, Foster + Partners, will design the ambitious project of the former Athens airport area in Elliniko, on behalf of Lamda Development.
The former Athens airport site on the so-called Athens Riviera was transferred by the Greek State to the Lamda Development consortium on Tuesday, after one year and a half of political bickering over its privatization. Lamda Development has hired Foster + Partners to carry out the design of the multi-billion euro project.