The climate in the Municipality of Athens smells battering against the backdrop of the new municipal authority’s highly alarming financial choices.

At the centre of the storm is the decision by Charis Doukas to lead the capital on a dangerous financial path, launching an unprecedented loan-mammoth, amounting to 75 million euros, from the European Investment Bank.

While the mayor attempts to dress this decision with a smokescreen for the necessary modernization of the school infrastructure projects, the masks fall and a policy is revealed that lacks serious planning and economic logic.

The former mayor and head of the “Athens Vila” faction, Kostas Bakoyannis, has already raised the tone of the confrontation, denouncing an extremely risky and irresponsible strategy that essentially saves the city’s future for decades to come.

The most troubling element, according to the fierce opposition charges on the City Council, is that the Duke administration chose to operate away from the spotlight from the start. It is indicative of sloppiness that Bakoyannis and his faction were informed of this huge debt completely incidentally and by mistake by a deputy mayor at a previous Council meeting.

The firesagainst Charis Doukasare raging, as his choice to saddle the city with loans of this magnitude transfers unacceptable financial burdens and unsustainable liabilities to subsequent administrations. Worse still, this policy is directly directed against the Athenians themselves,as the mayor is essentially preparing to dupe them for many years without presenting a costed and convincing plan.

In fact, reports say that the services of the Municipality of Athens are waiting like from heaven for the first disbursement of 22.5 million euros.

Despite Mr. Doukas’ staff’s attempt to go on the backlashby accusing his predecessors of “window dressing”, reality remains inexorable. Athens is in the hands of an administration that chooses the easy solution of borrowing and debt, putting the financial stability of the municipality at immediate risk and mortgaging the daily lives of future generations with unthinkable financial openings.