Greece’s government will within days approve a gold mine project in the north of the country that promises to create jobs and bring much needed investment to the area, Prime Minister Antonis Samaras told Wall Street Journal.
Giving the green light to a planned EUR 230 million investment by Eldorado Gold Corp. in the gold mine is aimed at calming the Canadian company’s concerns that arose in the wake of a swift, violent attack by masked vandals on one of its other mines over the weekend, the paper writes.
According to AMNA, this is a strong message voiced by Samaras that the government will not tolerate activities similar to last Sunday’s incendiary attack against the Hellenic Gold worksite in the town of Skouries, in the northern peninsula of Halkidiki, when some 40 masked intruders stormed the facility and set fire to machinery.
In statements to the WSJ, the Premier said that “this kind of act cannot be tolerated.”
“Greece is a modern European country, and we will at all costs protect foreign investment in the country,” Samaras added. “This is an investment that we very much want, and the whole procedure for the final approval will be finished within the next ten days,” the Greek premier told the WSJ as regards another mind in Thrace.