(ANSA) - BRUSSELS, MARCH 13 - "Marbles belong to the Parthenon. In these difficult times, the universal cultural heritage should elevate humanity, not divide it".
The vice-president of the European Commission, the Greek Margaritis Schinas, thus intervenes on Twitter in the historic diatribe between Athens and London on the Elgin marbles, kept in the British Museum, after the British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has rekindled the controversy, reaffirming the British ownership of the sculptures, in some statements to the Greek newspaper Ta Nea.
For two centuries Greece has been asking for the return of the treasures taken at the beginning of the nineteenth century by the British, Lord Elgin. The UK's new denial comes after Premier Kyriakos Mitsotakis borrowed the friezes on the occasion of the bicentennial celebrations of independence. (HANDLE).