Key day for Cyprus linkup
Thursday morning’s summit meeting between Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis and Cypriot President Nikos Christodoulides will be taking place in a climate of dissatisfaction and disappointment caused in Athens by the “fine print” of the decision of the Cyprus cabinet on the course of the electricity interconnection between Crete and Cyprus.
Athens is coming to Thursday’s summit in a last-ditch effort to save the project, setting as a red line a definitive agreement the existence of a regulatory framework to ensure its sustainability and Cyprus’ participation in the Great Sea Interconnector equity capital with €100 million – issues pre-agreed from the beginning of the month.
When they received the decision of Cyprus’ cabinet on Tuesday evening, the competent Greek authorities were surprised to find that the decision on the equity participation of the Republic of Cyprus in the project won’t happen until December 1, 2024, which, as it notes, will be received after the evaluation of the cost-benefit study by the European Investment Bank.
For Athens, this means that Cyprus is still questioning the utility of the project, so the Greek side made it clear on Wednesday that it is not prepared to keep putting money into a project that is not acceptable by both sides.
