Greek Energy Minister Kostis Hatzidakis offering “strong political support” for only two phases of the Israel-Cyprus-Greece electricity cable is “unfortunate”, as he tried to justify exclusion of the Cypriot developer building the critical Crete-Attica link, an expert said.
In an interview with the Cyprus News Agency, Hatzidakis expressed Greece’s strong political will to support Cyprus for the construction of the Crete-Cyprus and the Cyprus-Israel electricity interconnections as Projects of Common Interest (PCI), funded by the European Union.
He said his government decided to proceed with the Crete-Attica electricity interconnection as a ‘national’ project, despite the contrary opinion of the Cypriot side.
“Greece had to take a difficult decision, given that there is a particular need for the long-term efficiency of Crete’s energy supply, in a cost-efficient manner”.
Hatzidakis said the Greek government “could not risk any delay as regards Crete’s electricity interconnection to the mainland”.
“Proposals presented were not mature yet”, the Greek Minister of Environment and Energy said, avoiding any mention of the EU-approved project promoter, EuroAsia Interconnector.
“The comments by Hatzidakis about ‘immaturity’ should be addressed to himself, and not to the EuroAsia project supported by all Greek governments since its inception in 2012 and funded by the European Commission as regards surveys and research,” said Makis Georghiou, an energy and maritime observer, and regular contributor to the Financial Mirror.
“The Crete-Attica interconnector has been taken away from the Cypriot company and handed to a Chinese-controlled company on a silver plate, and the minister is trying to justify the unreasonable,” said Georghiou.
“Giving it to the partly-privatised ADMIE, will take longer to build, will cost more and will burden the Greek taxpayer by about €700 mln more.”
He said it was ironic that Hatzidakis has green-lighted the decision of the previous Syriza government to develop the Crete-Attica interconnection as a ‘national’ project, which the then-opposition New Democracy MPs had opposed.
KINAL deputy Vassilis Kengeroglou, who, worried that his constituency in Crete is at risk of energy isolation and lack of supply, submitted a parliamentary question to Minister Hatzidakis demanding that the electricity interconnection to Crete be secured in the next few years.
“The previous SYRIZANEL government implemented an ineffective energy policy, which in fact, because of its ideological views, rejected the ready-made project it had received, effectively leading the energy sector to a dead end.”
“Today, six years later, the New Democracy government continues to follow the wrong choice of the former government which is very costly for our country and leads Cyprus to electrical isolation.”
