Greece has pinned its hopes on France to revive the Great Sea Interconnector (GSI), the undersea electricity cable meant to link Crete with Cyprus and, at a later stage, Israel.
Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis raised the project with French President Emmanuel Macron at the Élysée Palace in Paris yesterday. The Greek Prime Minister’s office said the two leaders discussed the next steps for the Greece-Cyprus link.
The Greek Government now believes that resuming work on the cable, with France in a stronger role, is a matter of a few months.
At the Élysée, Mitsotakis also raised the impact of the crisis in the Strait of Hormuz on energy prices in Europe.
The stakes go beyond energy security. The project has been largely frozen since July 2024, when Turkish warships confronted a survey vessel working in waters south of Kasos, a small Greek island between Crete and Rhodes.
France’s footprint in the scheme has grown since August 5. On that date, the infrastructure investor Meridiam signed a deal in Athens to take a 66 per cent stake in the project company.
Greece’s Independent Power Transmission Operator (IPTO), which had driven the project, kept the remaining 34 per cent and the technical lead. The French firm Nexans already holds the contract to manufacture and lay the cable.
Meridiam chief executive Thierry Déau said at the signing ceremony that Macron called him every day about the cable. Mitsotakis, Macron and Cypriot President Nikos Christodoulides held direct talks on restarting the project around August 15.
Christodoulides has described Meridiam’s entry as decisive for both the economic and the geopolitical side of the project. He said the GSI was “closer than ever” to being realised.
While Mitsotakis and Macron met, Christodoulides’s diplomatic office held talks with French embassy officials in Nicosia on the same subject.
At sea, about 60 per cent of the seabed surveys have been completed. The remaining 40 per cent lies in waters claimed by both Greece and Turkey.
That includes the stretch south of Kasos. In 2024, Ankara justified its naval deployment by citing its 2019 maritime memorandum with Libya, which Athens rejects.
Before survey ships can return, Greece must issue a NAVTEX, a notice warning shipping of restricted or hazardous areas. Greek media have suggested it could come in October.
The remaining surveys may be carried out by a French company or consortium rather than the Italian firm NextGeo. No decision has been taken, though sources in Nicosia said a French vessel would have the backing of the French Government.
Paris expects Ankara to back down, given France’s defence cooperation with Turkey and the formal notification of neighbouring states about the route. Athens maintains that neighbours must be informed of the routing but not asked to approve it.
Greek foreign minister Giorgos Gerapetritis said on August 31 that work could restart before the end of 2026. “International law is clear: It does not require Turkey’s permission,” he said.
Speaking in Thessaloniki on September 6, Mitsotakis said Athens was also consulting Paris “so that we can obviously address all possible scenarios”.
Ankara has long opposed the scheme. In April 2025, unnamed Turkish defence ministry officials quoted in the media called it “provocative” and said it could not proceed without Turkey’s consent.
Athens and Ankara are also at odds over maritime zones elsewhere. In August, Greece condemned Turkey’s new marine parks in the Aegean and the eastern Mediterranean as illegal.
The full interconnector would stretch 1,208km across the Mediterranean Sea: 898km between Crete and Cyprus and 310km between Cyprus and Israel. The Crete-Cyprus section has received €657 million from the EU’s Connecting Europe Facility, according to the project’s website.
Its promoters say it would allow more efficient use of renewable energy across the three countries. Cyprus is the only EU member state not connected to the European electricity grid.
Israel, which also lacks power links with its neighbours, is intended to join in a later phase. The cable sits alongside a wider alignment between Athens, Nicosia and Jerusalem, which includes expanding military cooperation in the eastern Mediterranean.
Washington has also taken an interest. On August 17, a State Department spokesperson reaffirmed US support for energy cooperation in the region.
US lawmakers have urged Secretary of State Marco Rubio to back the project as part of the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor.
Obstacles remain beyond Turkey, though. Nicosia had sought fresh viability studies before continuing its payments, and energy regulators in Greece and Cyprus had yet to release 2026 payments to the project.
