Athens and Nicosia have agreed, in coordination with the European Commission, to set up a committee that will update the feasibility study of the project to link Cyprus with Greece’s power grid, instead of having the project’s contractor, ADMIE, conducting it.
Kathimerini understands that the two countries’ energy ministers have prepared the next steps for updating the Great Sea Interconnector (GSI) feasibility study, with Brussels’ Directorate General for Energy setting up a committee for that purpose with the participation of the two ministers.
This scheme, which was first discussed in the meetings that took place in Athens earlier this week with representatives of the two governments and with other countries interested in investing in the project, was agreed on, according to information, at a meeting between ministers Stavros Papastavrou of Greece and Giorgos Papanastasiou of Cyprus on Wednesday with Energy Commissioner Dan Jorgensen in the Belgian capital.
An international consultant will be commissioned to undertake the updating of the 2016 feasibility study in which the EU supported the financing of the Crete-Cyprus electricity interconnection with 657 million euros.
However, nothing specific was discussed at the Brussels meeting regarding the project’s timetable. The commissioner expressed the EU’s support for the project, referring to the energy highways initiative announced by Commission President Ursula von der Leyen in her State of the Union address, including the GSI.
Speaking to Open TV on Thursday, Papastavrou reiterated the strong investment interest that has been expressed for the GSI and the need to update the economic and technical characteristics of the project. He linked the investment interest in GSI with the broader interest in interconnections in the Eastern Mediterranean.
“American actors have expressed interest in the project and we are in the investigation phase. The Americans want the data to understand what, how and where. This project has a broader geopolitical dimension that operates in multiple dimensions,” said the minister. There is, he added, “greater interest in Eastern Mediterranean interconnections from both sides of the Atlantic, the Gulf countries and Israel.”