Five separate Greek infrastructure projects, each years in the making, are converging on the same few weeks this summer. Today’s contract signing for the Skaramanga interchange is only the opening move.

The Skaramanga interchange: today’s signing

Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis is due to attend the signing of the contract for the long-discussed triple interchange at Skaramanga, awarded to the METKA-DOMIKI KRITIS consortium after a tender that closed with a 21.2% discount on the project’s €60 million budget. Infrastructure and Transport Minister Christos Dimas pushed the contract through Parliament in the final days before signing.

The work upgrades the Athens to Corinth National Highway at the Schisto and Skaramanga interchanges and links Schisto Avenue with the Western Aigaleo Regional Avenue into a single corridor. In practice, it gives drivers heading from Attiki Odos to Piraeus and the southwestern suburbs an alternative route, and should take some pressure off Kifisou Avenue, currently one of the few ways around the port traffic.

The E65: the last 46km

By the end of July, the E65 motorway is expected to be fully open to traffic, closing a gap that has taken over a decade to complete. The final stretch, roughly 46km between Kalambaka and Grevena, carries a budget of €452 million funded through the Recovery and Resilience Facility. Once it opens, the E65’s full 182.1km, built at a total cost of around €1.4 billion, will link the PATHE motorway with Egnatia Odos, connecting the port of Igoumenitsa on the Adriatic with Volos on the Aegean.

The practical effect: Lamia to Egnatia drops to about 1 hour 30 minutes, Trikala to Athens to roughly 3 hours, and destinations like Meteora, Karpenisi, Metsovo and Lake Plastira become considerably easier day trips from the capital.

Kalamaria’s five new metro stations

The Thessaloniki Metro’s extension to Kalamaria, adding five stations (Nomarchia, Kalamaria, Aretsou, Nea Krini and Mikra), is set to open in the second half of July, possibly on the 28th. Getting there required untangling long-running construction issues on Pontou Street, which serves four of the five new stations, three of them on a section of the street that has not yet reopened to traffic.

With Kalamaria delivered, the Ministry’s attention shifts west, toward the city’s rapidly growing western neighbourhoods, though officials say the next phase won’t require the kind of temporary line closures used to finish this one.

Crete’s BOAK: the first 10km

In Crete, the first 10km of the Neapoli to Agios Nikolaos section of the Northern Road Axis (BOAK) is due for delivery this summer, part of a project that has taken so long it’s become something of a running joke on the island. This stretch widens the existing road to two lanes plus an emergency lane in each direction, on a 22.25 metre carriageway, and adds three grade separated interchanges at Neapoli, Limnes and Agios Nikolaos.

17 schools, one 20 year backlog

Away from roads and rail, 16 new schools are being built across the Thessaloniki area and one in Pieria, serving close to 5,000 students in municipalities including Neapoli-Sykies, Pavlos Melas, Lagkada, Oreokastro, Thermi, Ampelokipoi-Menemeni, Kalamaria and Pylaia-Hortiatis. The bioclimatic complexes are meant to close a gap in school infrastructure that has sat unresolved for two decades.

The Flyover: not there yet, but getting real

Thessaloniki’s elevated expressway, still widely known as the Flyover, remains the most-watched of the region’s projects and the furthest from finished. Progress has reached 53%, with two formwork sections now running in parallel and roughly 500 metres of structure built. The target for opening to traffic is spring 2027.

Public patience with the project has been thin. Construction has added to congestion on the ring road it’s meant to eventually relieve, prompting extra traffic police deployments and adaptive traffic lights to keep the city moving in the meantime. Whether scepticism turns into confidence likely depends on whether the 2027 date holds.