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Victoria Mindova

Bulgaria’s plan to erect a monument of Gotse Delchev in Serres is likely to remain just words. These are the conclusions, which GRReporter has drawn after trying to find the way in which the Bulgarian proposal could be implemented in practice.

A few days ago, the initiative of the municipality of Blagoevgrad to erect a monument of the Bulgarian hero at the place where he had died in 1903 was announced in Bulgaria. Being a Bulgarian media in Greece, we decided to check the status of the proceedings for the implementation of the overall project in the neighbouring country. The study has revealed that the project of erecting a monument of Gotse Delchev in northern Greece was initiated several years ago.

"We have been taking actions for the building of this monument for 15 years already but so far they have been fruitless. At the beginning of May, there was an idea for the volunteer companies and representatives of the municipality of Blagoevgrad to come to Serres and visit the place designated for the monument, but it was thwarted. So far, there has been no progress as regards this issue," a person familiar with the case, who wished to remain anonymous, told GRReporter exclusively.

We made a series of phone calls to the administrative office of the district of Macedonia and to the municipality of Serres as the approval of the initiative depends on them. At the mayoralty, we found Manolis Alexoudis, who is an employee in the administration of the local municipality. "There is no bilateral agreement for the erection of a monument. There is an application which is currently being considered by the responsible department," said Alexoudis, who was unable to provide answers to the following questions: "Which is the responsible department that should decide on the building of the monument?", "When do you expect that a decision should be made, whether it is an approval or refusal?" and "What is the procedure in such cases?"

We were left with the impression that the proposal to erect a monument of Gotse Delchev in Serres is probably lying at the bottom of the bottom drawer of a civil servant who has no intention of hampering his or her daily life with such projects.

To all these questions, we received evasive and vague answers like, "I ​​do not know which department is responsible for the issue," "I have no idea when the relevant authorities might decide on the subject" and "There is a procedure, but I cannot tell you what it is."

We were left with the impression that the proposal to erect a monument of Gotse Delchev in Serres is probably lying at the bottom of the bottom drawer of a civil servant who has no intention of hampering his or her daily life with such projects. People familiar with the procedures in the country told us: "It is very difficult to coordinate such initiatives in Greece. No municipality can take a decision on such a proposal alone. It must be coordinated with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, with other agencies and with the public. We cannot expect that it will be easy."