The much touted blueprint for rebuilding Evros after the region’s devastating 2023 wildfires appears to have been quietly shelved, despite repeated government promises of a structured plan to be carried out with great speed. According to a recording of a closed door committee meeting that has leaked to the local press, the master plan has been shrunk to 309 million euros from an original budget of 3 billion euros, even though half of that funding had reportedly already been secured, with 80 percent of the total expected to come from European Union and other institutional sources.
The recording captures the 14th session of the Special Committee for the Development and Reconstruction of Evros, where Deputy Minister for Climate Crisis and Civil Protection Kostas Katsafados in attendance. On the recording, Stavros Benos, the official Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis had tasked with drawing up the region’s recovery plan, is caught off guard as architect Alexandros Tsiatsiamis presents a replacement proposal, known as an Integrated Territorial Investment, worth a tenth of the sum Benos had spent more than two years assembling.
A plan born from catastrophe
The original blueprint, named “Evros After,” was commissioned in the aftermath of the 2023 wildfires that tore through the region. According to a 2024 report by the World Wildlife Fund, the Evros fire was the largest wildfire ever recorded in the European Union by area burned, consuming 94,250 hectares over 16 days and killing 20 people. The blaze burned through 58 percent of Dadia National Park and wiped out most of the region’s nesting colony of Cinereous vultures. It also destroyed homes, farms, livestock, vehicles and public infrastructure across the area.
Firefighters and volunteers work to extinguish a wildfire near the village of Dikella, west of Alexandroupoli, Greece on August 22, 2023. (SOOC/Konstantinos Tsakalidis)
Benos, a former government minister and longtime associate of former prime minister Costas Simitis, was tasked by Kyriakos Mitsotakis with drawing up the recovery blueprint under a written agreement and on a volunteer basis.
Among the projects dropped from the smaller replacement plan is the electrification of the region’s railway, budgeted at 700 million euros on its own, more than double the size of the entire new plan, despite EU financing for the project having already been secured, according to reporting in the Greek press.
“A great insult”
On the recording, Benos can be heard confronting officials directly. “Was a consultant brought in through official channels to work against my own study? What is this?” he is heard asking. Turning to Deputy Minister Katsafados, he asks how he is expected to keep working with the government after what happened. “I will leave quietly. I gave my all for this, and this (behavior) is a great insult to me,” he says on the recording. He also accuses Katsafados of setting a trap by inviting him to the meeting without warning him that a rival study would be presented, telling him, “You must have known that a study would be presented, that goes against mine.”
Katsafados sought to calm the room, telling attendees that no announced project or funding commitment would be lost. Local reports noted that three of the region’s four mayors also appeared troubled by what they heard at the session.
Benos goes public
After the recording began circulating, Benos confirmed the confrontation and the scale of the cuts to his plan in on the record comments to the press. His public remarks have since drawn sharp criticism of the government from opposition parties in Athens.
PASOK lawmakers Manolis Christodoulakis and Panagiotis Dimopoulos issued a joint statement accusing the government of abandoning the original master plan and cutting it by nearly 90 percent, while dropping projects such as the rail electrification despite secured European funding. The two demanded full transparency over what happened to the original 3 billion euro commitment and called for the excluded projects to be restored.
Katerina Berdou of the Greek Left Alliance, a deputy defense policy coordinator who is from Evros, said it was telling that three years after the fire, officials were still arguing over what the master plan actually contains rather than discussing how much of it has been completed. Natasa Gara, deputy secretary of SYRIZA, criticized the government for leaving the reconstruction effort on paper, but also questioned why Benos had not raised concerns earlier if, in her words, there had been no visible results for years.
A promise made in Orestiada
The dispute also revives a pledge Mitsotakis made during a visit to Orestiada, the region’s largest town, in October 2024. Acknowledging residents’ fear that promised work would never materialize, he said the government was moving from public announcements to the implementation of “a structured plan that will be carried out with great speed,” telling residents they had “every reason to feel more optimistic.”
