Greek life is a beach

… or what the initiatives to “reclaim the beach” teach us about Greece today

The “Towel Movement” as a metaphor to life in Greece

Greece has a long history of political movements, social initiatives and protests of all kinds. If there was a World Cup for activism, Greece would easily claim the top spot — by a wide margin to the runner-up. While partisanship and ideology often hide behind these societal forces, we also see rare cases where people’s frustrations may organically manifest. Enter the “Towel Movement”.

The Towel Movement started in the island of Paros about a month ago. A group of locals and frequent holidaygoers, frustrated by the illegal spread of organized sunbeds, umbrellas and beach-bar construction at the island’s many beautiful beaches, decided to do something about it. Armed with their towels, the group started protesting at any beachfront location they felt had been unfairly and unlawfully usurped from public use. The movement began spreading through social media and soon expanded in the neighboring island of Naxos, Rhodes, Attica and even the Northern region of Chalkidiki. It’s now pretty much everywhere in Greece.

The good news? State officials are now scouting Greek beaches, the public prosecutor started investigating the issue, the government has been pressured to act (and is proposing new measures), the opposition has aligned with the need to solve this, and PM Mitsotakis has signaled his intention to hit against the ongoing injustice. Some offenders have already been caught.

The bad news? The widespread illegality across all of Greece’s beaches is a clear sign that auditing mechanisms have been non-existent for decades, even for the simplest and more glaring forms of unlawfulness. While the dual push by the government and judiciary has led to some illegal structures be taken down, the minute state auditors leave these beaches, the illegalities magically pop up again as if nothing happened.

If this reminds you of a never-ending session of whac-a-mole, or hypocritical game of cops and robbers, where the cops wink at the robbers and let them out of jail each time they catch them, you are not the only one. The 2023 Greek beach wars are a good metaphor to life in Greece at large.

But it does not have to be this way.

There are practical solutions, such us monitoring beaches via aerial or satellite means. Spaceborn remote-sensing techniques have evolved drastically, although they are still not cheap. Luckily, UAV-based coastal monitoring is becoming an increasingly more cost-effective and precise solution that can be used by commercial operators, state officials and even citizen scientists. Drones have already been used on the islands of Malta and Gozo in Sicily (Italy) and the Red Sea coast for beach litter monitoring, in Barcelona for beach occupacy monitoring and across Spain as lifeguard support tools.

Our cultural norms also need to shift. The peaceful protests of every-day Greeks joining the Towel Movement to take back Greece’s beaches show us the way. If more of us come together and speak up against wider injustice, pointing to glaring cases of unlawfulness in a bold but also elegant way, things can actually start to change. We need to keep up the pressure both against law-breakers and our elected officials, reminding the first that “this is not OK” and the latter that we expect better.

Reclaiming our beaches will not solve all of Greece’s problems. But it’s a good start.

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🙌 PROOF THAT GREECE IS CHANGING

Greek wines are slowly (but surely) taking over the world. Greek wine makers have struggled for years to make a dent in the global winemaking scene — a lack of coordination among producers, branding difficulties, as well as Greece’s small size of production, have all been key factors hampering the global prospects of Greek wine. But the industry persevered and now Greek wines are gradually “fascinating” wine lovers all over the world with their “unique allure” and are becoming much more popular abroad. The hype is real and the numbers don’t lie: in 2022, Greek wine exports grew 16.79% in value and by 6.61% in terms of quantity, starting to command higher prices. It is probably not a coincidence that Greek wine bars have seen a significant boom, especially in the city center of Athens.

As I am writing this with my favorite red in hand, I’d like to make a big toast to all Greek wine makers — big or small, young or old, in the mainland or any of our islands — for taking the industry to new global heights: stin ygeia sas!

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💰 INVESTMENT GRADE ANTE PORTAS

After 13 years of junk rating, Greece is ready to return to investment grade. During the last month, two agencies have already raised the rating of Greek sovereign debt above junk levels: Japanese R&I raised Greek economy's rating to investment grade BBB- stable, quickly followed by Scope, which also improved its Greek sovereign rating to BBB- from BB+. DBRS, which is expected to review its own rating of Greek debt in September, also just published a note hinting at a future bump. All eyes are now focused on the Big Three — Moody’s, S&P and Fitch. An upgrade by any of these top rating agencies will herald an official turn of the page for the Greek economy.

American tech giants are on a Greek startup acquisition spree — Code BGP was acquired by Cisco in August, Arrikto was acquihired by Hewlett Packard Enterprise earlier this summer, while Mist.io is rumoured to have been scooped up by Dell.

Greek-founded startups have raised $872M so far in 2023, with $203M allocated to companies with operations in Greece, according to data collected by Marathon VC.

Macquire snaps up 50% of Enel Green Power Hellas for $345M plus assumption of debt, leading to the co-management of the company’s renewable generation portfolio.

Pfizer has completed a new investment in Thessaloniki to establish a “Safety Surveillance & Risk Management“ unit in the country (one of eight in the world).

Switz Group is acquiring dough and puff pastry company Ioniki, following a series of acquisitions in the Greek food space (Kriton Artos, Olympic Foods, Artizan Hellas).

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🏅 CELEBRATING GREEK WINS

Greek shipping remains at the top of the world in 2022 according to the latest report by the Union of Greek Shipowners, which is full of useful facts and figures. You can find other interesting data here and here. Curiously, China seems to have just inched ahead of Greece in 1st place.

Greek beer production increased by 41.26% in 2022 thanks to increased consumption and exports, putting Greece in the 8th place among 18 other EU member-states. 

Greece is investing increasingly more in R&D in 2022, coming 6th across all 27 EU member states in terms of public investment in R&D as a percentage of GDP.

Tilos is winning against the very concept of waste having reduced its waste footprint by almost 40% in the past year. Read more here by economist Danae Kyriakopoulou.

Antonis Tsapatakis has won gold in the World Para Swimming Championship for a second year in a row. A massive win for an amazing Greek athlete.

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🏛 A TASTE OF GREECE’S HISTORY

Anatolia Imprints brings to life the Asia Minor Disaster and the violent displacement of Greek families that followed. A multi-year, cross-disciplinary project led by academics Elias Papaioannou (LBS) and Stelios Michalopoulos (Brown) who were joined by a large team of collaborators from Greece and abroad. You can read more about the thinking behind the project by one of its lead authors here.

The Gaitis Simossi Museum at Ios is a remarkable gem under works by the daughter of famous Greek painter Yannis Gaitis. Delayed for a decade, maybe this is its year?

Α look into the historic 1st Firestation of Athens for a trip down the memory lane that also helps build greater appreciation for the tough work of our local firefighters.

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Until next time.