Filenews 14 January 2026 - by Chrysanthos Manoli
The President of the Republic had stated on December 30 that it was a matter of a short time to know who would be assigned the study to update the techno-economic data of the Cyprus-Crete electrical interconnection.
15 days have passed and there is nothing new about the study. Not only has it not been announced which firm or which mechanism will undertake to carry out the study, but we do not even know if there is a process running, by the Cypriot Government or the Greek or jointly, to select the designer.
We do not know if it can legally be directly assigned to a specialized agency. We do not know if any service in Cyprus or Greece is preparing terms of reference for such an important study.
We hear, from unofficial sources, that an effort has been made or is underway to assign the study to a firm without an open tender, in order to save time. We hear that a legal opinion was also requested from the Legal Service. It is not known whether the opinion was given and what its content is.
We remember from an earlier similar need that a direct assignment for the realization of a study could be considered legal only if its estimated cost does not exceed 25 thousand euros. But is it possible to make a real, reliable and useful study with €25,000? Unlikely.
Should a procedure be initiated for some kind of competition, even a fast-paced one, which can yield a good choice of designer and especially a reliable study, which will help us make such important decisions?
Should the two governments cooperate in selecting a scholar? Do they cooperate? Why has the Greek Government avoided referring for weeks to the electrical interconnection and in particular to the Mitsotakis-Christodoulides decision to update data? Why is IPTO silent? Does he agree or disagree with the update? Will he wait for this update without charging it as another sign of a delaying policy on the Cypriot side and without placing it in his quiver as an additional argument against Cypriot interests, when the time comes for the bill for the division of debts or the time for a head-on collision in the courts?
Why did Nexans, which recently officially admitted the process of reprogramming the project in collaboration with IPTO, not make the slightest reference to the update study? Why did it not inform its shareholders and the competent stock exchange authorities that the two governments decided - and IPTO tacitly accepted - that no further step will be taken for the electrical interconnection without delivering an update study? And what kind of rescheduling of work will this be, since it will depend to a large extent on the unknown time of selecting a designer and carrying out the study?
The Presidency of the Republic and the political leadership keep their attention focused on the video of the "finger". As far as the electrical interconnection of two or three billion euros is concerned, however, time flies quickly to the detriment of the country's interests.
And regardless of what Nexans wrote in its announcement, the project has stopped, Nexans has reacted and complained in writing about the long delay and will use this protest when necessary in all steps and IPTO blames the entire delay on the Cypriot side: the Government and the regulatory authority (CERA). He even blames the Cypriot side for the delay due to geopolitical issues and Turkey. In fact, IPTO never refers to a geopolitical problem. Officially, it blames the delays in carrying out the maritime research for the laying of the cable not on Turkey's illegal actions in Kasos and elsewhere but on the regulatory issues that it claims exist, with the responsibility of CERA and the Cypriot Government. With the main pending issue being the 50 million. euros that the Government committed to pay to IPTO for 2025 and 2026.
The government and the political leadership must understand the extent of the entanglement. And the extent of the economic damage that threatens the Cypriot economy, society, taxpayers. And the risk that we will find ourselves facing not only IPTO but the IPTO-Nexans front, as the latter considers the Greek organization as its strategic partner and craves other contracts with it for new interconnections on the Greek islands. As long as the delay in clarification is prolonged, everything gets worse, especially for us.
And it is urgent - for this issue and for others - to make it completely clear to everyone that the political crisis caused by the video does not exist in one in a million cases to make the President and the Government vulnerable to any pressure for decisions that will harm the interests of the public.
