Alberto has secured a Westminster Hall debate on the future of the Parthenon Marbles and the role of the British Museum Act 1963 in determining their status, in what he describes as a potential “win-win” for both the United Kingdom and Greece.
The debate will take place on Wednesday 30th April at 11:00am, in the Grand Committee Room, Westminster Hall.
Mr Costa, who chairs the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Greece, is calling for creative and constructive dialogue with Greece to resolve a decades-long cultural and diplomatic question.
“This debate is not about apportioning blame or rewriting history,” Mr Costa said. “It’s about seizing a post-Brexit opportunity, to show friendship, mutual respect, and imagination in our cultural diplomacy.”
In the debate, Mr Costa will propose a long-term, indefinite loan of the Parthenon Marbles to Greece, in a way that respects the legal boundaries of the British Museum Act.
In return, he suggests the UK could benefit from a series of rotating exhibitions of Greece’s most treasured artefacts in major museums across the UK—from Leicester to Edinburgh, Cardiff to Belfast. These artefacts could include the likes of the Antikythera Mechanism, the world's first known analogue computer, or the Mask of Agamemnon.
“This proposal is not about emptying the British Museum,” Mr Costa added. “It’s about restoring a set of uniquely significant artefacts to their original context, while enhancing the UK's cultural offering through a new reciprocal arrangement with Greece.”
Mr Costa is expected to float the idea that British tourists could be granted free access to view the Marbles in the Acropolis Museum in Athens, as a gesture of goodwill between the two nations.
With over 4.5 million British tourists visiting Greece in 2023—the highest on record—Mr Costa emphasised the depth of modern ties between the two countries.
Mr Costa said: “Britain and Greece are family. And like all families, we’ve had our disagreements. But this debate is about how we can resolve the only real dispute we’ve ever really had and turn it into a mutually beneficial opportunity.”