Filenews 7 December 2025 - by Chrysanthos Manoli
Regardless of the official position of the European Commissioner for Energy Dan Jorgensen that there is no need to carry out a new cost-benefit study for the electricity interconnection between Cyprus and Greece, the Cypriot Government considers it necessary to update the technical-economic data of the project, before any other steps are taken towards its implementation. But when should the new study be ready for the update?
The information of Fileleftheros states that the re-evaluation of the project had been linked from the beginning to the realization of a new meeting of the 3+1 scheme (Greece, Cyprus, Israel and the USA). And according to the Minister of Energy of Greece, Stavros Papastavrou, this meeting will take place in Washington in April.
The period until April should be used by the governments of Cyprus and Greece to choose a house or mechanism to carry out the update, so that Washington can make or formalize decisions, mainly on issues related to the geopolitical obstacles posed by Turkey.
According to a statement from Greece's Ministry of Energy, the April meeting is expected to focus on further developing infrastructure projects and facilitating the transmission of gas and electricity to Europe. Mr. Papastavrou stressed through the statement that 3+1 is the basis of a new regional architecture with countries that "respect the rules of the game and avoid confrontation".
In Mr. Papastavrou's statement, however, there is no reference to a study to update the data on the Great Sea Interconnector, as decided in November by President Christodoulidis and Prime Minister Mitsotakis. It is reported, however, that Athens is looking for investment participation from Middle Eastern countries, in order to expand the group of stakeholders. Something like this is of great interest to the Cypriot Government as well.
In the event that there is an agreement with, for example, companies from the United Arab Emirates, it is a given that the role of IPTO in the electricity interconnection project will need to be reviewed. Something that is already being discussed behind the scenes. For the time being, IPTO has not officially reacted to the decision of the two governments to carry out an updated study on the cable, although this development has frozen developments and makes the financial problems of the public (majority) company more serious. Problems that seriously affect not only the Cyprus-Crete cable but also electrical interconnections on the Greek islands, as part of an investment plan worth €6 billion.
IPTO, Chinese and others
In recent days, there have been reports in Greece about liquidity problems at IPTO, but also about American and European pressures to remove the Chinese State Grid from the management and share capital of IPTO (24%) and attract other investors. A few days ago, Kyriakos Mitsotakis had told Bloomberg that "it will be necessary, at some point, a capital increase (in IPTO)" and that the Greek State, despite the fact that it wishes to maintain control of a strategic asset, "is obviously open to attracting capital from investors".
According to powergame.gr website, "with his statements, the prime minister made it clear that the government seeks the entry of new investors into IPTO, a choice that is directly linked to the need for capital strengthening of the Operator, to ensure the financing of critical island interconnections."
