Will he also join the circus act?
Source: in-cyprus.com
You never know, but nothing on the horizon justifies optimism that anything truly significant or positive will emerge from today’s teleconference between the European Energy Commissioner and the relevant ministers of Cyprus and Greece, George Papanastasiou and Stavros Papastavrou.
– The Cypriot side hasn’t changed its position: It’s unwilling to pay at this stage the €25 million it committed to 13 months ago as the first instalment to IPTO for the electrical interconnection expenses in 2025. The Christodoulides government continues to speak vaguely about “IPTO’s commitments, which it must fulfil,” without listing them one by one. However, the Framework of Understanding signed by the two governments in September 2024 doesn’t record any specific obligations for IPTO. The Government implies—without stating it clearly—that unless the geopolitical situation is clarified and unless bathymetric surveys southeast of Crete proceed, it won’t pay the €25 million. But neither the surveys nor anything else are listed as prerequisites for the first instalment, either in the Framework of Understanding or elsewhere. And most importantly: The Cypriot Government still appears to treat the €25 million as pocket money it’ll give IPTO for its expenses in the coming period. It’s not pocket money for future expenses, though. It’s money representing a tiny fraction of what IPTO has already spent on the cable. With the blessings of both governments and the EU.
– The Greek government, for its part, has now stopped even offering the consoling “the maritime surveys will be conducted at the appropriate time.” Not a word about any NAVTEX. But it claims to remain committed to the project. Just as our government is committed. We have two fully committed governments and one completely abstract interconnection.
– And then we have IPTO, desperate to get the €25 million—which it is 100% entitled to—presenting the Cypriot Government’s evasions as the most serious obstacle to substantial progress on the project. While knowing full well that even if it gets the €25 million, we’ll remain at the same impasse. For the well-known reason. Which is the most serious, but not the only one. Because with €25 million a year, IPTO will struggle to meet the financial obligations of the project, especially since it has found neither investors nor lenders. And how could it find any, under these disappointing circumstances?
– And then there’s the European Commission, which at the energy directorate-general level has been pretending for a year not to understand what’s happening and backing IPTO, which keeps rehashing techno-economic loose ends. Today, Energy Commissioner Don Jorgensen makes his first official appearance in this mess. If he too kicks the can down the road to “Karagiozis’s wedding” (A right circus) and starts parroting the lines about “regulatory gaps” and outstanding payments, without “cutting to the chase” about what will happen with the surveys being blocked by a third country while the EU remains unmoved, it means hopes have vanished and each side must now prepare to save its skin—or limit its damage—when the time comes for assigning or accepting responsibility for the shipwreck that appears to be imminent.
The side that might “more easily” manage the risk of being loaded with undue responsibility is the Cypriot one. By paying the €25 million. As a first instalment, because we already owe more. And by waiting for the maritime surveys from IPTO. Which will wait for the NAVTEX from the Greek authorities.
The original article: belongs to in-cyprus.com .
