The former king Constantine passed away at the age of 83. June 1, 1973 marked the end of the reign in Greece, with Constantine remaining abroad and not returning to Greece. In fact, for the first time after the change of government, he returned in 1981 and this for the death of his mother, Frederiki.
With his flight, however, the issue of royal property and royal patronage arose. The former left the country in December 1967, after failing to organize a counter-movement against the Junta, which then, after he had left, continued to give him the royal patronage, which he collected until 1973.
The former made his first real estate money around 1970, when he sold Tatoi a large farm “across the railroad tracks” for five million dollars.
With his flight abroad, he is said to have faced financial problems, but the movable and immovable property inherited by his wife Anna-Maria, after the death of her parents, were then added to their bank accounts.
According to an earlier publication of “Vima”, in 1973 the junta had deposited 120 million drachmas for the expropriation of the so-called royal property, but the interested parties allegedly refused to receive it.
The Suspicious Tatoi Riff and the 10-Year Secret
A strange burglary took place in Tatoi in 1991 and the police kept it a secret for 10 years. The list of stolen items included a gold diadem in the form of a tiara with pearls, gold pictures with diamond-studded frames, emerald crosses, ruby bracelets, diamond rings, a pearl necklace and an amethyst pendant.
The lost treasure of Tatoi had rare relics of untold value and they suddenly took flight.
The break-in took place while the movable property of the Glyxburgs was in a container and would be transported by trucks to the port of Piraeus and from there to the port of Tilbury, England.
At that time, the administrator of the royal property, retired admiral Marios Stavridis, presented himself at the Kifissia Police Department and stated that “after a burglary in Tatoi, paintings and religious icons were stolen”.
The dispute with Greece over the so-called royal property
The Greek citizens voted in favor of a kingless democracy, punishing Constantine for the pre-dictatorial turn of events. In the referendum of December 8, 1974, the de-reigned republic obtained a large majority of 69.2% against the reigned’s 30.8%.
Thus, Constantine decided not to return and his disputes with the Greek state over the former – now – royal property reached the courts. They concerned Mon Repo in Corfu, the Tatoi estate and the Polydendriou estate in Agia Larissa.
In 1992, he entered into an agreement with the government of Konstantinos Mitsotakis, by which he assigned most of his real estate in Greece to a non-profit foundation in exchange for the return of the old summer palaces of Tatoi and the right to export a large number of movable assets from the country.
The contract was passed by law 2086/1992 on the sanctioning of the contract between the Greek State and the former King Constantine. It is worth mentioning that the Corfu people occupied the Mon Repo palace protesting against the agreement and declaring that the palace belongs to the Corfu people and not to the monarch.
Also, in 1992, all the movable property that was in the old palaces of Tatoi, which according to reports included classical and Byzantine antiquities, was transported by container. The containers in which the movable objects were transported from Tatoi caused a public outcry. In fact, it was recorded that paintings, religious icons and jewelry were stolen. It was also noted that the 1992 law of the Mitsotakis government scandalously served the interests of Constantine.
They wrote the “News” in 2007: The former king had valued his claimed property at 161.1 billion drachmas, as it appears from the memoranda he had provided. The European Court, as it turned out, did not share his positions. It awarded him not full, but reasonable compensation amounting to 4.6 billion drachmas, (13.5 million euros) an amount far less than even the money raised (a total of 14.2 million euros) at the auction by Christie’s house.
The first visit
Still, in 1993, he made a first major visit to Greece, but the government was annoyed by his tour and faced with increasingly strong opposition protests asked him to leave. In 1994, the government of Andreas Papandreou annulled the 1992 agreement with Law 2215/1994 and stripped Constantine of his property in Greece and Greek citizenship, considering that the royal property had already been expropriated by the legal decree of the Junta of the Colonels.
The specific law recognized that the junta’s expropriation of royal property was originally legal and remained in force after 1974, when democracy was restored, while calling former King Constantine as Constantine Glyxburg while requiring family members to declare a surname in the registries as a condition for regaining Greek citizenship.
On October 21, 1994, he filed, along with eight other members of the royal family, a complaint against Greece at the European Commission of Human Rights in Strasbourg, claiming that Law 2215/1994 violated provisions of the European Convention on Human Rights.
The appeal was signed by, among others, Rosalyn Higgins, a professor at the London School of Economics and later the first female member of the International Court of Justice in The Hague, and Georges Vedel, a member of the French constitutional court and an eminent jurist, while the main work of the defense was done by the law lords Lester and Nathene – Arnaouti assisted by lawyers Bravo and Georgiadis.
In October 1998, the decision of the European Commission was published, which considered the property part of the appeal as an admissible reason and not the rest, referring the case to a new department with a new composition. In November 2000, the European Court of Human Rights condemned Greece for violating the first article of the First Protocol, while on November 28, 2002, the European Court awarded 13.7 million euros, of which 13.7 million euros were awarded to the former king Constantine. It should be noted that in the appeal the former king and the other members estimated the royal property at 161 million euros.
The legal representatives of the Greek State pointed out in their memorandum that three critical elements must be taken into account for the amount of the compensation:
- Konstantinos and his family members are ordinary private citizens, without privileges and with this admission the property must be valued exclusively in money.
- The applicants have not paid taxes and other debts to the State since acquiring the disputed property.
- A large part of the areas of the estates in question are forested and as such have little commercial value, due to their limited exploitation possibilities.
- It is noteworthy that Konstantinos claimed a painting by George Scott and other objects which, however, according to the bills of lading provided by the Greek side, had been transported with the containers from Tatoi on the last weekend of Halloween 1991. This revealed that Konstantinos was lying and caused shame to the judges.
Finally, by a court decision, the former king was awarded 13.7 million euros as compensation, which was collected by the Acharnon Municipal Corporation in March 2003. The Greek State paid this amount from the “natural disasters” budget, wanting to make a political allusion, and issued the relevant credit note from DOU Acharnon as locally competent, on the grounds that Constantine’s last place of residence in Greece was the Palace in Tatoi. Constantinos, then, after receiving the amount through a proxy attorney, announced the creation of the “Anna – Maria” Foundation based in Liechtenstein as a body for allocating his compensation to charitable purposes. Until today, however, the activities of the institution have not been made known.
