Papastavrou on the cable: “The only country that granted a permit by issuing a NAVTEX is Greece” – what he said on the French notification

The Greek government insists that the French note verbale to Turkey changes nothing about who licenses the Greece-Cyprus cable. Environment and Energy Minister Stavros Papastavrou, speaking in a radio interview on Monday, November 9, put the NAVTEX at the centre of the argument: “The only country that granted a permit by issuing a NAVTEX is Greece.”

In the interview, as rendered in the Ministry of Environment and Energy’s statement, Mr Papastavrou stressed that Ankara had repeatedly sought to be asked for a permit for the project to proceed, something that, he said, “did not happen.” On the French move he was categorical: “Any notification, if one was made by France, does not constitute, nor can it be considered directly or indirectly, a request for a permit.”

The NAVTEX as the answer

In other words, Athens maintains that whatever document Paris sent to Ankara was informational and did not open a licensing question, since the licence, in the government’s view, has already been granted by the Greek side. Mr Papastavrou’s wording does contain a detail worth noting: he speaks of a notification “if one was made,” without directly confirming the existence or content of the document.

The text of the note has not been made public, which leaves open the question of its exact character, as covered in our report on the French note verbale. For now, the official public document is NAVTEX 1411/26 for the Abeille Marengo, issued by Greece, to which Turkey responded with its own counter-NAVTEX.

The minister recalled that the Greece-Cyprus-Europe interconnection cable is among the most important projects the EU has designated of common interest and has secured EU funding of more than 650 million euros. Its aim, he said, is to end Cyprus’s energy isolation and strengthen Europe’s energy integration.

The American interest

In the same interview Mr Papastavrou announced that on November 17 and 18 the transatlantic energy summit P-TEC will be held in Warsaw, with the responsible ministers of the Vertical Corridor states and US Energy Secretary Chris Wright, with whom he will hold a bilateral meeting. According to the Greek minister, Mr Wright’s participation shows that Washington, regardless of which party governs, has a long-term interest in the stability of the Eastern Mediterranean and in reducing Central Europe’s dependence on Russian gas more quickly, which highlights Greece’s pivotal role.