The Council of State, the country’s supreme administrative court, has fined the finance ministry €20,000 for failing to demolish the top two floors and roof terrace of a hotel owned by the furniture and hospitality company Coco-Mat. The building stands in Makrygianni, the historic district just south of the Acropolis, within a protected archaeological zone. It rises to 33 metres, against a maximum permitted height of 24 metres for buildings in the area. If the ministry does not pay, the obligation passes to the Decentralised Administration of Attica, the regional state authority.

The court stressed that the two earlier fines have still not been paid to the local residents who brought the case. The second, imposed last April, was for €10,000.

The latest ruling was issued by the court’s three-member Compliance Committee, chaired by Michalis Pikramenos, with Councillor of State Christos Papanikolaou as rapporteur. It found that, despite seven separate court records on the matter, the authorities have still not complied with a 2019 ruling by the court’s Plenary, its full judicial body. That decision (number 2102/2019) annulled a building permit issued by the City of Athens, which had allowed Coco-Mat’s parent company to put up a ten-storey hotel with three basement levels, a planted roof terrace and an open-air swimming pool.

The court acknowledged that progress had been made towards demolition but said it was not enough. In its words, “despite the progress made in the previous period in advancing the demolition process, full compliance has not been achieved, while around seven years have passed since the publication of Plenary ruling 2102/2019 and five years since the compliance petition was filed.”

The Council of State therefore found once again that the administration had failed to comply with its 2019 decision. It pointed to what is at stake, namely the protection of the monuments of the Acropolis, the Acropolis Museum and the surrounding area, and to the fact that the two earlier penalties remain unpaid. On that basis it ruled that the state must pay the petitioners €20,000 as a sanction for non-compliance.