The Minister of Culture Lina Mendoni, responding in Parliament to the topical question submitted by Course of Freedom MP Alexandros Kazamias on “The dinner in the hall with the Parthenon Sculptures in London and the stance of the Greek government on their return”, reiterated the firm position of the Greek government for the definitive reunification of the Parthenon Sculptures.

Referring to the recent dinner that took place in the Parthenon Sculptures hall at the British Museum, the Minister noted that “actions such as this recent dinner in the Duveen Gallery in fact strengthen within the international community Greece’s arguments regarding the need for reunification of the Sculptures. These actions by the British Museum are obviously in the opposite direction to the safety and integrity of the Sculptures. At the same time however, these actions also weaken any claim of the British side – because I will no longer call them arguments. The British side’s arguments have long since been demolished.”

Referring to the overall strategy of the Greek government, she stressed that “The Government has a strategy. I have said it before – a strategy which is revealed, is not a strategy. Negotiations are secret. Any negotiation conducted under the light of the sun, stating your arguments, automatically you have lost a very large part of your negotiating leverage. In any case, what we are doing is that we always respond to provocations, we reinforce dialogue, we exhaust the tools of cultural diplomacy, we systematically inform both political and scientific communities and without wanting to boast – there is evidence, and you know it – that anything substantial and tangible that happened in the issue of the Sculptures in the last fifty years, happened in the last six years.”

Lina Mendoni repeated that: “Everything that is happening and the international environment is absolutely favourable for the reunification and repatriation of cultural property which has been illegally exported. The government of Kyriakos Mitsotakis is working united and methodically on this issue. We consider that our goal is now closer than ever in the last 50 years.”