The mayor of Piraeus, Yannis Moralis, spoke about the 4th culinary festival of Piraeus municipality, scheduled from September 25-28, on Parapolitika 90.1 radio show “On Air” with journalist Niki Lyberaki. “We have flavors from around the world, the embassies of Vietnam, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, China, Panama and Romania will be cooking dishes from their countries,” he emphasized among other things. “It’s a great opportunity for Piraeus residents and Attica inhabitants to come to Piraeus to taste flavors and have a wonderful time,” he added at another point in his interview.
Asked to comment on the government’s decision to remove urban planning authority from municipalities, Mr. Moralis stated “I didn’t like what I heard that ‘we’re taking away urban planning departments because there is corruption.’ I don’t believe there is any major corruption in local government or that central administration is completely clean and transparent.” Regarding Piraeus traffic problems, he said – among other things: “We are pressuring the government, the entire city not just the municipal authority, to proceed with the famous underground rail lines from Karaiskaki to the port, which we believe will ease the traffic burden we have.”
Yannis Moralis: Full interview on Parapolitika 90.1
On the occasion of the 4th culinary festival of Piraeus municipality
Y.MORALIS: Piraeus was built by people who came from other places – Maniots, Cretans, Cycladic islanders, Dodecanesians, Epirots, Asia Minor refugees and others. All of these have composed high-level gastronomy and my view has always been that if we want to attract people to Piraeus, we won’t attract them for our beautiful beaches or mountainous settlements but for the city’s history, culture, people and gastronomy. Together with A. Zarakeli, the deputy mayor for extroversion, we are creating the 4th culinary festival of Piraeus municipality, September 25-28. It will be a very beautiful festival with participation from many well-known Greek chefs.
Y.MORALIS: Tomorrow at Mikrolimano at 7 pm we begin. Tomorrow we’ll have with us the Greek Tourism Organization president Ang. Varela and tourism deputy minister An. Karamanli, special chefs will cook and we expect people to come. We have “cinema on a plate” at Korai square, meaning films related to gastronomy and cooking. We have flavors from around the world, the embassies of Vietnam, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, China, Panama and Romania are cooking dishes from their countries. We have the “sea bream festival” at Aphrodite’s bay, a traditional celebration at 8:30 pm on Saturday. We have the “tsikouda festival” and many other events. Citizens can visit the Piraeus municipality website or the Sea Days website to see the complete program of events. It’s a great opportunity for Piraeus residents and Attica inhabitants to come to Piraeus to taste flavors and have a wonderful time.
Asked to comment on the government’s decision to remove urban planning authority from municipalities
Y.MORALIS: I didn’t like what I heard that “we’re taking urban planning departments because there is corruption.” I don’t believe there is any major corruption in local government or that central administration is completely clean and transparent. I can’t say there’s no corruption in urban planning departments, that would be a lie, but I don’t like the argument that we’re taking them from municipalities to transfer them to central administration because of this. It’s an argument that saddens and angers me. For ten years we’ve been asking successive governments to staff urban planning departments so we can do our job properly, because understaffing also brings corruption phenomena.
On Piraeus traffic problems
Y.MORALIS: Traffic, parking, air pollution, environment and green spaces are things that require collective work. We are pressuring the government, the entire city not just the municipal authority, to proceed with the famous underground rail lines from Karaiskaki to the port, which we believe will ease the traffic burden we have.
Regarding flood protection works for the city
Y.MORALIS: They’re not progressing. There are studies, there is funding, we talk with the Attica Regional Governor, Mr. Hardalias, we talk with ministries but we haven’t moved as quickly as we would like and as fast as the situation requires. We don’t have time to wait, these projects must be completed quickly. We submitted 60 million euro studies to the Region and we’re waiting to see if there’s possibility for funding at least one or two studies. It’s a problem we’ll face ahead of us…
