The opposition is calling for political parties to be briefed on the French note verbale to Ankara concerning the electricity interconnector cable linking Greece, Cyprus and Israel.The main issue, party officials explain, is the content of the French note verbale, to establish whether a third country intervened in a matter involving Greece’s sovereign rights by seeking and obtaining “permission” from Turkey for the project.
“Laying a cable is a right; it does not even require notification, and obviously does not require permission from neighbouring countries,” Alexis Tsipras said last night in an interview with Ioannina television station ITV.
As he explained, following the incident off Kasos, where the Italian vessel was obstructed, the French are now coming in (editor’s note: a French company has since arrived) and issuing a note verbale to enable a project to go ahead that constitutes an inalienable sovereign right: laying a submarine cable, not a pipeline.
Mr Tsipras said the development represented a major retreat, because “Mr Mitsotakis’s foreign policy has failed miserably and has left the country unable to exercise its sovereign rights in the region, forcing it to seek Turkey’s permission or consent in order to exercise those rights”.
He therefore called for the parties to be briefed on the issue.
PASOK: Four key questions
In a more measured tone, PASOK foreign affairs chief Dimitris Mantzos chose to put specific questions to the foreign minister and, he added, the prime minister himself.
- Did the Greek government know in advance that France would formally notify the Turkish government in writing by means of a note verbale, and had it agreed? Did it know the note’s contents and approve them?
- Why did France, an EU member state and a party to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), notify a third country about a technical project that, under the rules in force, should have proceeded without such formalities?
- When and why was the note verbale required “for reasons of navigational safety”, as the government spokesman claimed yesterday, given that Greece had already lawfully issued the relevant NAVTEX on Friday, 6 November 2026, in accordance with international law and IMO rules?
- Has the Greek government assessed the impact of the note verbale on Greece’s positions and, more broadly, on Greek-Turkish relations?
Accordingly, PASOK has already requested an official and detailed briefing from the government on the issue.
SYRIZA: What have we ceded?
SYRIZA chose an even more measured tone: “The issue is neither something to celebrate nor to curse; we are following developments,” said the party’s secretary, Nikos Pappas.
He too, however, raised the key question: “Have we ceded the negotiations to a private company? Will Greece’s sovereign rights be safeguarded?”
Awaiting answers and developments.