Androulakis demands text of French note to Turkey on Greece-Cyprus cable

Androulakis presses the government in parliament

PASOK leader Nikos Androulakis attacked the government during the plenary debate on an energy bill, demanding the text of the verbal note France sent to Turkey about the Greece-Cyprus electricity interconnector. He asked whether the government knew in advance that the note would be sent, whether it had approved its content and whether it had been sent in Greece's name. Androulakis argued that France had carried out on Greece's behalf what Turkey had sought from Athens at Kasos in 2024. He also pointed to a government spokesman's statement of 26 October that any information to Turkey would come only from the contractor companies, and asked what had changed since then. He called remarks by two deputy foreign ministers, who compared the note to a small notice from the public power company PPC and to a water utility's warning about digging under a home, ludicrous.

“What Turkey wanted from Greece at Kasos in 2024, you made France do on our behalf in 2026.”

Government rejects the criticism

Environment and Energy Minister Stavros Papastavrou replied that the opposition was distorting reality and that its questions were ones the other side had not dared to raise. He said the project was advancing with strong European and international backing, citing a statement of support from the European Commissioner for energy after a trilateral meeting with his Cypriot counterpart, Michalis Dimitriou, and solidarity from 25 energy ministers at a Council meeting in late October.

“The distortion of reality is nationally harmful and politically irresponsible.”

Papastavrou added that six lawmakers from the Democratic and Republican parties in the United States had also expressed support in a letter to the foreign ministry. He insisted that only Greece had issued a NAVTEX and granted a permit, and that the French company had applied for a permit only in Greece. Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, speaking at a travel.gr conference run by Proto Thema, called the cable a European project with a strong French presence. He said licensing of the survey ship had been granted only by Greece and Cyprus, and that a general briefing to third countries such as Turkey and Egypt creates no legal precedent.

“Our answer is clear, the Greek government has no problem with this information.”

The survey and the financing

According to Greek media reports, the Great Sea Interconnector consortium has ordered the French research vessel Abeille Marengo to sail from Heraklion to the waters southeast of Karpathos, where surveys will restart from the point they stopped in 2024. The work is due to take four months, up to 12 nautical miles from Cyprus, and one report says 60% of the seabed surveys on the Greece-Cyprus route have been completed. The project changed shape when the French group Meridiam took a 66% stake, after the transmission operator ADMIE had held it entirely until the summer. Papastavrou cited 657 million euros in funding, while a Greek report gave 680 million euros from the European Commission and noted a further application to the European Investment Bank. The next milestone is the release of 25 million euros that Cyprus must pay under its intergovernmental agreement with Athens, which President Nikos Christodoulides has committed to pay on the issuing of the NAVTEX.

Opposition from the left

SYRIZA-PS said in a statement that the government's handling of the cable carries serious consequences for Greek foreign policy as a whole. It called France's note to Ankara a serious blow to confidence in whether Greece can guarantee the laying of the cable, and said Athens had ceded rights to pursue national policy. The party asked why the French company and the French state had informed Turkey, why Turkey had become an interlocutor in the matter, and whether the step amounts to indirect acceptance of the Turkish-Libyan memorandum, which it called illegal. Androulakis, for his part, linked the government's appeal to national effort to the OPEKEPE case, accusing it of using the same argument whenever faced with awkward questions.