Filenews 24 July 2024 - by Chrysanthos Manoli
Yesterday's move by Turkey to launch five warships off Kasos and Karpathos, while an Italian ship was conducting surveys and soundings for the needs of the electricity interconnection between Cyprus and Crete, caused great concern in Greece and Cyprus.
If the Turkish warships were mobilized, even as observers, for the soundings, what can be done when the cable starts laying in sea areas for which Turkey is making claims? How serious is the geopolitical risk threatening the cable?
Ankara's move to deploy warships in the area, under the pretext of violating the Turkish continental shelf by the Italian ship "Levoli Relume", which is conducting research for the future installation of the cable, shows that Turkey will not remain uninvolved in monitoring developments for a geostrategic project, worth €2 billion.energypress.gr euro, in which she does not participate'.
Turkey reacts to every major energy project that bypasses it, as Tayyip Erdogan's strategic goal is for his country to become the main, if not the only, hub for transporting energy to Europe, as he had attempted to do with Israel's gas before completely severing relations with it.
The energypress.gr adds: "How crucial a role the above dimension plays is shown by the fact that the Greek Energy Regulatory Authority (RAAEY) has set as a parameter to approve the project and the geopolitical risk. According to its latest regulatory decision, it is foreseen that if the project fails, the costs until then will be recoverable by IPTO. A similar provision to that of the Greek authority has been requested by the Cypriot regulator (CERA) to include in its approval decisions."
In short, the Greek regulator has decided that electricity consumers in Greece will pay the cost of the project until the moment of a hypothetical drastic intervention by Turkey, even if the €2 billion project will never work.
What CERA decided since '23
The website writes that ADMIE requested a similar decision from CERA. In reality, however, there is already a relevant provision in the regulatory decision CERA 22/2023, which does not fully satisfy IPTO.
In Article 25 of the regulatory decision (entitled "Arrangements in case the Project does not proceed with completion") it states, among many others, the following:
'2. In accordance with the provisions of para. 1 of this Article and para. 3 of article 17 of Regulation (EU) 2022/869, in case factors arise that make it impossible to complete the development and construction of the DG and which are external and outside the control of the Owner, then the reasonable and efficient costs incurred up to that point in time may be recovered, following CERA's decision and on the basis of the methodologies issued in relation to article 17 of Regulation (EU) 2022/869, by the users of the national transmission system (Cypriot electricity consumers) through the network access tariffs and shall be returned to the Owner within a reasonable period of time".
Therefore, there is already a relevant regulation in CERA's decision. So what is ADMIE asking to change? It requests, as Phileleftheros is informed, that the word 'may' be deleted. That is, it should not be at CERA's discretion to approve or not approve such a request by IPTO or any implementing body for recovery of the costs incurred even if the project will not be implemented due to an external factor (e.g. Turkey). ADMIE wants it to be clear and binding for CERA and Cyprus the obligation of electricity consumers to pay the full cost of a project that will fail for geopolitical or other factors.
What obviously acquires another dimension (after yesterday's orbital incident in Kasos) is the need to examine even today any geopolitical risks for the interconnection project and the possibilities of avoiding them, before final and binding decisions are taken by the implementing body, the European Commission, the regulatory authorities and the two Governments.
