Great Sea Interconnector

Cyprus is the one EU member state whose grid is connected to nobody. Every megawatt on the island is generated there. The Great Sea Interconnector would change that with a cable 898 km long from Korakia on Crete to Kofinou on Cyprus, running at depths of up to 3,000 metres, deeper than any power cable yet laid.

The idea is older than the name. The project was announced in Nicosia on 23 January 2012 as the EuroAsia Interconnector, with a cable planned to continue to Israel; that leg would take the total to 1,208 km. It was accepted as an EU Project of Common Interest in October 2013. In January 2022 the European Commission granted €657 million from the Connecting Europe Facility, and a construction ceremony was held that October. On 19 July 2023 Nexans signed a contract worth €1.43 billion for the subsea cable, and in October 2023 the Greek grid operator IPTO became the implementing entity. It was renamed the Great Sea Interconnector in 2024. The official project site gives a budget of €1.9 billion; Wikipedia cites €2.5–3.5 billion for the first stage.

Then the project hit the eastern Mediterranean’s disputed waters. In July 2024 Turkey sent warships to stop survey work in the area of the route, and in March 2025 the project was suspended after further Turkish objections, with payments to Nexans frozen. The Wikipedia article records both. The island’s financial contribution was also contested; a payment of €25 million a year was under discussion in August 2025.

The latest turn came in August 2026. The French infrastructure investor Meridiam took a 66% stake in the project company, with IPTO keeping 34%, and a tripartite agreement between IPTO, the company and Nexans was signed in Athens to restart the work, with the seabed surveys as the first priority. Cyprus’s energy minister Michalis Damianos called it a “vote of confidence”, Euronews reported, but said Cyprus would wait for a European Investment Bank due-diligence study before deciding on its own stake.

No completion date is currently firm; the original target of 2029–2030 has slipped. The Crete end already has a grid to plug into: the Crete–Attica link connected the island to the Greek mainland in 2025. Whether the surveys can be finished without another naval stand-off is the open question.