Reports circulating in the press about the Greece-Cyprus electricity interconnector, particularly actions by either the French contractor or the French government itself in relation to Turkey, raise questions, PASOK officials responsible for the issue Dimitris Mantzos and Yannis Maniatis said in a joint statement.
As they noted, “the question arises as to whether the French side had any communication with Turkey, for what purpose and in what terms, and whether both the fact of the communication and its content were known to and approved by Greece in advance.
The Greek government cannot, of course, respond with silence.
Given the seriousness of the issue, not only for the submarine interconnection project itself but also for the future course of Greek-Turkish relations, the Greek government must provide an immediate and detailed briefing on the actions taken by the parties involved to date, and on how Greek diplomacy assesses their implications.
Furthermore, given the project’s shared European interest and its importance for the EU’s energy security, as originally envisaged by the George Papandreou government in 2011, PASOK - Movement for Change will submit a related priority question to the European Parliament.
For our part, we reiterate to all concerned that the study, implementation and completion of the project to lay submarine power cables must proceed exclusively on the basis of the EU acquis and the international law of the sea, and solely in accordance with the procedures it sets out,” PASOK concluded.