Financial Other

In early March 2025, Greece's Independent Power Transmission Operator (IPTO/ADMIE) suspended a payment instalment of approximately €70 million due to French cable manufacturer Nexans under the €1.43 billion Crete-Cyprus cable EPC contract for the Great Sea Interconnector. The suspension, originally due to be paid by the end of February 2025, was attributed by Greek government sources to a desire to limit IPTO's financial exposure while uncertainty persisted over Turkish objections, stalled bathymetric surveys near Kasos, and Cyprus's regulatory contributions. By the date of suspension, IPTO had invested approximately €200 million in cable construction, a substantial portion coming from the EU's €658 million Connecting Europe Facility grant. Nexans issued a formal regulated-information statement on 6 March 2025 saying recent media reports did not reflect the actual status of the project or ongoing relations with the customer, that it had received substantial payments enabling continued manufacture, and that it intended to continue executing contractual obligations and receiving corresponding payments in accordance with the contract and the most recent discussions with the customer. The freeze marked the first public financial stress signal on the project and was the opening event in a year-long restructuring arc that encompassed the November 2025 Greek-Cypriot joint decision to update the project's economic and technical parameters, Nexans's December 2025 cancellation of subcontractor tenders, the January 2026 confirmation of extended delivery, and the April 2026 joint letter to the European Investment Bank requesting an independent due-diligence study.