Positive
Project advancing - milestone achieved
High Impact
Major milestone or critical setback
On 12 December 2025, the European Investment Bank approved EUR 490 million of debt financing for IPTO's North-East Aegean Interconnection programme, which includes the Phase C Chios-Samos 150 kV AC submarine link as part of the broader scheme connecting Lemnos, Lesvos, Chios, Samos and Skyros to the Greek mainland and Dodecanese transmission grids. As a regulated Greek TSO project funded through the national transmission tariff topped up by the EIB facility, this project does not undergo a discrete merchant-style FID. Following the pattern documented for other regulated TSO transmission projects (Danish Energinet LUP-funded works, German BNetzA NEP confirmations, Greek RAE Decision 611/2021 framework), the EIB programme approval is recorded here as the de-facto financial close milestone for status derivation purposes — the same treatment given to Phase A Limnos-Lesvos. Created during manual audit review by analogy to the Phase A FID (the EIB facility is programme-wide and underwrites Phase C as well as Phase A).