Greek PM urges Burnham to return Elgin Marbles permanently

Greek PM urges Burnham to return Elgin Marbles permanently

The Greek prime minister has urged Andy Burnham to show the "political will" needed to send the Parthenon sculptures back to Greece.

In an article for the Guardian, Kyriakos Mitsotakis said returning the classical treasures, known in the UK as the Elgin Marbles, would "send a powerful signal" but would demand "courage".

The sculptures have been exhibited in the British Museum since the 19th Century, although Greece has long challenged the legality of their removal.

Mitsotakis and his government have previously discussed the sculptures with the British Museum, but no agreement has yet been reached, with Greek officials pressing for their permanent return.

The Greek PM used the recent attention surrounding the loan of the Bayeux Tapestry to the British Museum to repeat his country's claim to the Elgin Marbles.

"Nobody would seriously contemplate cutting what survives of the tapestry in two and displaying half in London and half in Bayeux, and claiming this was an adequate way to understand it," he wrote on Thursday

"Yet that is exactly what happened to the Parthenon sculptures."

His remarks follow comments from British Museum director Nicholas Cullinan, who suggested that the recent deal between the UK and France, after decades of refused requests to borrow the medieval embroidery, could point to a possible agreement with Greece over the Elgin Marbles.

Mitsotakis said he was "surprised at the recent suggestion from the museum that the Bayeux Tapestry loan might provide a template for an agreement over the Parthenon sculptures", adding: "I do not believe it does."

"Greece cannot accept any arrangement that would require it to recognise the British Museum's ownership of the sculptures, or a scheme that would mean we 'borrow' parts of our own monument," he wrote.

Instead, he called on Burnham to stand by his earlier remarks on the sculptures and find a way to return them permanently.

That would be a "decisive step", Mitsotakis said, one that would "reunite the sculptures and transform a historic dispute into a unique act of cultural friendship".

Back in 2023, several years before he returned to government and became prime minister, Burnham said the sculptures should be returned to Greece with "no strings attached".

For years, he backed a change in the law to make that possible. But last month, he told the Financial Times that "ultimately it's an issue for the British Museum", adding that "legally that's where that issue rests".

Many of the Elgin Marbles come from the Parthenon in Athens

British ambassador Lord Elgin was given permission by the Ottoman Empire, which governed Athens at the time, to remove some of the marble statues in the early 19th Century.

They were made between 447BC and 432BC to adorn the Temple of Athena - now known as the Parthenon, in the Acropolis in Athens.

After an 1816 parliamentary select committee ruled Elgin's actions legal, the sculptures became part of the British Museum collection through an act of Parliament.

The Greeks dispute that their removal was lawful, and calls for their return have been outspoken.

The Parthenon gallery in the Acropolis Museum in the Greek capital was intentionally designed with spaces left for the sculptures in the British Museum.

Back in 2023, George Osborne, then the museum chair, told the BBC he was seeking a "more co-operative arrangement" after "quite a bitter disagreement" with the Greeks for more than 200 years.

Mitsotakis's latest remarks seem to indicate a renewed hardening of rhetoric around the long-running dispute.

Last month, Greece's health minister told Breitbart News he would like to see US President Donald Trump pressure the British to return the Parthenon pieces.

The British Museum's position - and that of the UK government - is that the law blocks the permanent return of items in its collection, although loan agreements are common.

Campaigners say the British Museum Act could be changed. However, the UK government has not indicated that this is a priority.