Greek Minister of Tourism Looks Forward to a Busy Year

I am afraid to visit, or my family after learning of all the animal cruety in your country. Why is there so much abuse? Why is there no animal welfare and laws to enforce punishment. This is so shameful and evil, in our modern civilized world. What kind of people live here? Why, the innocent, voiceless, helpless?

The best investment Greece could make to attract tourists is to provide good welfare and care for its countless thousands of stray, abused, neglected, tortured, and abandoned animals to be seen all over Greece.
Its a downright disgrace to even anticipate spending 80 million euro on advertising its beaches and sun, when tourists return from their vacations with horrendous memories of abused animals and NO PROVISION of any humane welfare.
Greece relies on donations from all over the world to finance any kind of animal care.
She will not take responsibility herself.
Shame on you Greece – Tourists Beware.

80million to spend on tourism!! What a bloody disgrace!!!My blood boils when I think about how just even a small portion of this money could be spent on educating the public on treating their animals humanely and with respect. I agree with Valarie, if Greece wants to attract more tourist then I suggest Minister of Tourism, you clean up your act because I have not met one person yet who has come to Greece and not witnessed a dog, donkey or horse chained to a tree under the blazing sun without shade or water, or seen countless helpless stray cats and dogs wandering around desperately looking for food and water. There is a lot of ignorance here(so much that if you put a bowl of water out on the street for the dogs, some one will take it away believing that they could catch some fatal disease ). Last year I rescued a dog who was chained for 7 years. The dog was left there to die, no one thought to realise it. It’s metal chain was embedded one inch into its neck almost to the bone. It survived on scaps feed to it from a neighbour. And all took place in an affluent suburb of Athens…SO lets take that obscene budget and split it into public education, to include TV adverts to educate the masses on humane treatment and care of all its pets, farm animals included, and fund those animal shelters who do so much but have no, I stress NO GOVERNMENT FUNDING AT ALL. Also lets go after those b********* who inflict cruelty to these poor animals. Greece does NOT ABIDE by or IMPLEMENT its existing animal rights laws so we need pressure from those in the European Union to force Greek Government to get off their backsides and do something, Tourists …if you decide to come to Greece, please kick up the biggest stink you can especially if you witness any form of animal cruelty and mistreatment. Even better boycott Greece altogether and write to your MP, MEP, TV Station, newspaper, travel agencies, the Greek Embassey(in your country) and the Greek Government and tell them that a country with such a blatant disregard for animal welfare is not a country worthy of visitors.

There are two faces of Greece. On the one hand we have the warm and friendly welcome it extends to its foreign visitors, and on the other the appalling cruelty some of those same friendly people inflict on defenceless animals.
Unfortunately, once you have experienced the second of these, the first disappears from your memory. Greece is a wonderful country with so much to offer, but it will offer so much more if it cared for the animals who live there.
I echo the pleas above. Spend some of this budget on educating people how to treat their pets and the strays who live amongst them with kindness. Spend some money helping the charities to neuter and care for the strays, and please give your countrymen access to veterinary services that they can actually afford. So many Greek people want to look after their animals well but financially it is so hard for them.
It may seem a waste of your budget to spend money this way but Greece will have an enhanced international reputation and tourism will directly benefit from these measures.

I am a Greek and i prefer travelling abroad where dogs and cats are not begging for food outside taverns and i dont have to count dead animals on the streets and i dont have to carry food with me to feed skinny puppies and i dont have to call my vet in the middle of the night asking what to do with the injured pregnant dog that was just hit by a car.
You should be ashamed asking from us to visit the covered of dead animals streets of Greece

I agree with the other posters. Perhaps people should go elsewhere for their holidays and let the Tourism Ministry know that they won’t be back until the Greeks start to enforce their own laws for the protection of animals.

The government is totally hopeless and useless and only really works with “little envelopes”. But who is going to bribe an official to enforce a law concerning animal cruelty. It’s so sad and a real tragedy. So many suffering creatures that are protected by a law that is never enforced. Shameful and despicable.

Hi all – just wanted to thank everyone for commenting so vigorously on this topic which is near and dear to many.

Obviously, this post was just generally commenting on the former Minister of Tourism’s outlook on the year ahead. Naturally, he hopes for the best in terms of numbers in the coming year.

While the animal rights situation still needs a great deal of improvement to match most of the countries in the EU, though fortunately it is better than many countries around the world, I have seen some positive changes over the past fifteen years and these need to be encouraged wherever possible by visitors to Greece. Greece has so much to offer, and frankly, a one-issue boycott of Greece would not be noticed in this major, worldwide tourism slowdown – the past minister’s very positive outlook not withstanding.

I have lived on the island of Crete for 9 years, I see no improvement in the provision of Animal welfare, I see no reduction in the numbers of stray and abandoned animals other than via the ongoing indiscriminate mass poisoning programmes, I see no improvement in prosecuting those that inflict terrible cruelty despite the fact that this is illegal in Greek Law. I have personally witnessed the agonising deaths inflicted on my animals by cocktails of poison and I have no recourse to justice.
You ask for animal welfare improvements in Greece to be encouraged by visitors to Greece?
The only animal welfare that exists for stray abandoned and abused animals is worked by volunteers and financed by overseas charities. Greece’s animal welfare is financed in total by these and donations sent by many PAST and NON returning visitors.
Greece, meantime does nothing other than deny that a problem even exists.
Any request made to Greek ministers including the tourist minister is either totally ignored or is rewarded with a standard issue of a letter which contains not one element of truth. Greece persistently ignores any legislative measures set up by the EU despite a 12 million euro grant to part finance better animal welfare here. The spending of this grant cannot be accounted for, however, one thing is certain the voluntary animal welfare organisations who work at the tough end got not one penny of this money to help animals. Greece has Animal Welfare laws they are not enforced and therefore not worth the paper they are written on.
Past and prospective visitors to Greece are not operating a one issue boycott of Greece they have in many instances witnessed animal neglect cruelty and abuse themselves and far from the happy holiday memories these experiences do not fade.
Look at the countless video accounts of animal abuse in Greece, the many personal comments from those visitors who have witnessed these events, reflect on the mass indiscriminate poisoning programmes which is Greece’s quick fix clean up campaign before the tourist arrive.
The Tourist Minister would be well advised to think about the effect that this issue has on tourism and maybe organisations such as yours should point out these issues rather than encourage tourists to come pick up the tag by donating and coping with the distress that so many of them experience.

I agree. i’d love to see the beautiful and historic country, but until the officials get their flipping act together and enforce animal welfare laws, I want nothing to do with it. Why not use your frickin “80 million euro tourism budget” that you’re giggling over to better the lives of the helpless animals in your country? life is about more than tourist competition – it’s about bettering the life of our planet and, in turn, ourselves.