Insight: Gold mine stirs hope and anger in shattered Greece

Mon, Jan 13 2014

By Deepa Babington and Lefteris Papadimas

OURANOUPOLI, Greece (Reuters) - A Canadian quest to mine for gold in the lush forests of northern Greece is testing the government's resolve to prove Europe's most ravaged economy is open again for business.

The Skouries mine on Halkidiki peninsula - a landscape of pristine beaches and rolling hills dotted with olive groves - is among the biggest investments in Greece since it sank into a debt crisis four years ago.

But it has set Greece's desperate need for finance to rebuild the economy against the interests of its vital tourism industry, and aroused anger on the peninsula - site of the famed Mount Athos monasteries - over the environmental cost.

Greece Is Not Poor; Has Abundance Of Uptapped Reserves Of Gold, Oil And Natural Gas

October 15th, 2012

Michael Snyder: It turns out that the poster child for the European debt crisis is not actually poor at all.  In fact, the truth is that the nation of Greece is sitting on absolutely massive untapped reserves of gold, oil and natural gas.  If the Greeks were to fully exploit the natural resources that are literally right under their feet, they would no longer have any debt problems. 

Greece Welcomes Gold Miners to Rank First in Europe: Commodities

Bloomberg News

For three years, Steve Sharpe’s company prodded Greek officials for permission to drill for gold. Before approval was finally granted this year, European Goldfields Ltd.’s battered share price attracted a takeover bid.