Following the change of government in Greece earlier this year, their has been some confusion about exactly what the position of the new government is regarding the return of the Elgin Marbles, as when in opposition they attempted to obstruct the construction of the New Acropolis Museum.
This press release helps to clarify the importance that the ND government place on the return of the sculptures to Greece.

From:
Hellenic Ministry of Culture

The official Greek position on the restitution of the Parthenon Marbles to Athens

Interview excerpt Kostas Karamanlis, Prime Minister

“Culture is a social investment because the world needs values and humanity”

Journalist: Is it meaningful to continue the campaign for the return of the Parthenon Marbles with the same passion, when the British appear negative toward our request, or would it be wiser to change our tactics and start negotiations in a different manner?
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After numerous lengthy delays, work is again underway on the construction of the New Acropolis Museum. A critical part of the argument for the return of the Elgin Marbles.

From:
Kathimerini

Friday November 12, 2004
Acropolis museum promised for 2006

Greece’s long-delayed project to build a new Acropolis Museum that might one day host the Elgin, or Parthenon, Marbles will be finished in two years’ time at a cost of 129 million euros, the government promised yesterday.

Deputy Culture Minister Petros Tatoulis told a press conference that the contract for construction of the ultra-modern new building at the foot of the ancient citadel was signed last Friday. The previous, Socialist government had sworn to have the building ready before the Athens Olympics, at a cost of 94 million euros. But nothing happened. Yesterday, Tatoulis accused his predecessors of having “never handled the matter seriously.” If the museum is ever built, Athens hopes it will provide it with a strong argument in its bid for the return of the fifth-century BC Marbles from the British Museum, which, backed by the UK government, has refused to relinquish the sculptures.

The New Acropolis Museum is definitely going ahead. However the incoming ND government have concerns about the cost, or more specifically how they are going to find the money.

From:
Kathimerini

Thursday September 30, 2004
New Acropolis Museum Budget grows to 129 million, Greece seeks EU funding

Athens has started the process for securing European Union financing for the New Acropolis Museum, the Culture Ministry said yesterday. The project, with which Greece had hoped to pressure the British Museum into returning its Elgin Collection of fifth-century BC sculptures from the Parthenon, was supposed to have been ready in time for the Olympics but never got off the ground. According to the ministry, it will now cost 129 million euros, with 85 million provided by Brussels. The initial budget was 94 million. The museum is to be built in Makriyianni, under the ancient citadel.

Now that the New Acropolis Museum is definitely going ahead, the Greek Government is hoping to include it in the list of projects financed by the 3rd Community support fund.

From:
Hellenic Embassy Press Office

New Acropolis Museum to be included in 3rd Community Support Fund
30 September, 2004

The new Acropolis Museum will be included in the list of projects to be financed by the 3rd Community Support Fund. The technical report for the museum as well as a cost/benefit analysis has been sent to the Ministries of the Economy and of Finance respectively. The museum will cost approximately 85 million euro, 50% of which amount will by funded by the EU and 50% by Greece.

According to a statement issued by the Ministry of Culture, a re-structuring of the Board of Directors of the Organization for the Construction of the New Acropolis Museum is in progress as is the reissue of a presidential decree regarding its operation. Re-structuring of the museum’s management as well as the supervision of the project will also take place, deemed essential if the New Acropolis Museum project is to be approved by the EU.

Another article prompted by the Olympics, this also covers the construction of the New Acropolis Museum.

From:
Toronto Star

Aug. 15, 2004. 09:08 AM
Going for all the Marbles
While Greece heralds the return of the Olympics, there is one more homecoming it would like to see

MITCH POTTER

ATHENS—It was synchronicity of the highest order: an ancestral homecoming for the Olympics, coinciding with the repatriation of the famously controversial Parthenon Marbles, the most precious missing pieces of Greek antiquity.

Such was the scale of cultural ambitions as Greece mused through the various ways it might elevate art to stand alongside sport in its planning for Athens 2004.
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The Boston Globe has an in depth article about the Greek case for the return of the Elgin Marbles in the lead up to the Olympics.

From:
Boston Globe

They’ve lost their marbles, and they want the world to know
Greek exhibit presses Britain to return Parthenon sculptures
By Charles M. Sennott and Sarah Liebowitz, Globe Staff And Globe Correspondent
July 12, 2004

ATHENS — Art exhibits often have missions or political statements. But the goal of an exhibit opening next month at the Parthenon, the jewel of Athenian art and culture, is more specific than most: It is intended to provoke London’s British Museum into loaning its Parthenon sculptures to Greece.

Timed to coincide with the millions of tourists flooding into Athens for the Summer Olympics, the exhibit, which is expected to open Aug. 2, has been assembled to starkly illustrate what the Greeks see as an injustice. It occurred in the 19th century, when the British Lord Elgin and his team of excavators hacked nearly half of the marble sculptures and friezes off the Parthenon and toted them back to London, where they are housed in the British Museum.
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Many people will disappointed that the ongoing restoration works to the Athenian Acropolis will miss the completion deadline of the forthcoming Olympics. However, it is far better that the restoration works are carried out correctly & not rushed, rather than artefacts being possibly damaged in the race to give the impression that the works are completed by a specific date (a date that was never known about when the restoration works began).

From:
Reuters

Athens treasures will miss Games deadline
Tue 22 June, 2004 05:02
By Daniel Howden

ATHENS (Reuters) – Visitors to August’s Athens Olympics wanting to see classical treasures such as the temple of Athena Nike or the northern colonnade of the Parthenon will have to make do with buying picture postcards instead.

Construction workers stalk the dusty halls of some of the city’s finest museums while priceless sections of the Acropolis have been dismantled and taken to the cleaners.
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This article looks at the reasons why the Marbles Reunited campaign feels that the Parthenon Marbles should be returned to Athens.

From:
Toronto Star

May 23, 2004. 01:00 AM
New strategy to `reunite’ Elgin marbles
Greece requests a loan for Olympics British Museum thinks it’s a ruse
SANDRO CONTENTA

ATHENS—The scaffolding and cranes around the Parthenon these days give the ancient monument what the Greeks of the time would have surely described as a tragic allure.

Built in honour of the goddess Athene, protector of Athens, the temple was considered one of the finest of the ancient world.

But time has its way with even the grandest of efforts, and no amount of work can restore a beauty that today is more suggested than real.
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A somewhat misleading article by the Daily Telegraph about the New Acropolis Museum in Athens. The article accuses the Greeks of destroying archaeological remains on the site, but anyone who studies the case in detail will see that every possible action was taken to avoid such a thing happening. Wherever you dig in a city as old as Athens you are going to be close to important remains – in this case though, they have been turned into a political argument, both between the three largest Greek parties & between Greece & Britain.

From:
Daily Telegraph

Is Athens’ Olympic dream turning to dust?
(Filed: 03/05/2004)

The city is still a giant building site as many projects for this summer’s games, including the stadium’s crowning glory, remain uncompleted. Giles Worsley reports

There are two things you notice as you arrive in Athens late at night. The first is an impressive motorway, completed earlier this year, which whisks you into the city from the large new airport opened in 2001. The second is that all the cars parked along the side of the streets seem to be covered in dust. Athens has become a vast building site as the Greeks race to make the city ready for the Olympics, which open in less than four months. What you do not see from the motorway by night, though they are prominent landmarks by day, are the two great arches that should already support the Olympic Stadium roof. Whether that will be finished for August 13 will probably be the most nail-biting race in the whole games.
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The New Acropolis Museum is a project that has dragged on for well over 10 years with various architects. The latest problem is that many local property owners are using the courts to slow the construction process, in the hope that the site without the museum on will increase the value of their property.

From:
Arts & Antiques

Stalemates in Greece
Joel Groover
May 2004

ATHENS, GREECE—Greek officials hoped the empty galleries of a much-anticipated New Acropolis Museum would shame Britain into returning the Elgin Marbles in time for the 2004 Athens Olympics. But the architect of the half-built museum—a glass and steel box on the slopes of the Acropolis—now says it cannot open in time for the Games (August 13–29).
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Theodoros Pangalos, the former Culture Minister of Greece has called for the current deputy minister, Petros Tatoulis to resign because of the lawsuit he filed intending to stall the construction of the New Acropolis Museum.

From:
Kathimerini (English edition)

Tuesday March 23, 2004
Ex-minister calls for resignation of current deputy over museum suit

PASOK deputy and former Culture Minister Theodoros Pangalos yesterday called for the resignation of the current deputy culture minister, Petros Tatoulis, for his having lodged a suit — before he entered the Cabinet — against officials involved in plans to build the new Acropolis Museum. The charges were linked with the alleged destruction of antiquities to allow preliminary construction work. “Now Tatoulis is ordering his own legal advisers to fight the suit which he himself lodged,” Pangalos declared in Parliament.

More on the delays to the proposed opening date of the New Acropolis Museum.

From:
The Guardian

Greek Museum Won’t Be Ready for Olympics
Tuesday February 24, 2004 11:46 PM

ATHENS, Greece (AP) – A new Acropolis museum being built to house sculptures from the ancient Parthenon will not be finished before the Aug. 13-29 Olympics, Greece’s culture minister said Tuesday.

The museum at the foot of the Acropolis hill – held up by court actions from residents – is a key part of Athens’ drive to press for the return of the collection from the British Museum in London.
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