Key link in EU energy network gets green light

Date: 27/03/1997

By Tim Jones

A KEY piece of the EU's energy jigsaw will be put into place following an agreement between Italy's central government and a handful of local authorities.

A 300-million-ecu electricity interconnector between Galatina in the heel of Italy and Arachthos on the west coast of Greece can now go ahead after network operator ENEL gave assurances that it would avoid environmental damage when laying the cable.

In November, communal authorities in Puglia refused to grant a construction permit for the link after they carried out an environmental impact study, even though the ministry of the environment in Rome had already approved the interconnector.

The project is one of the ten priority trans-European energy projects identified by heads of government three years ago as worthy of preferential funding from the Union budget.

Already, the project managers have received a loan worth 100 million ecu from the European Investment Bank.

The operators also received a small grant from the budget for a feasibility study, but this was made on the understanding that the project would be due to start within two years, private financing would be involved and it would contribute to a single market in energy.

The scheme was scheduled to be completed by the end of next year. It involves the laying of a 160-kilometre submarine cable from Porto Badisco to Aetos and 45 kilometres of overhead lines from there to a conversion station at Galatina.

To allay the concerns of the Pugliese communes, the project managers have promised to run most of the overhead lines underground from the sea.

This will add to the cost, but ENEL has not specified by how much and whether it will seek extra Union funding to cover it.

The compromise will be welcome news for Energy Commissioner Christos Papoutsis, who condemned the decision to block the construction of

the link in November, claiming that it would prove “highly damaging to the electricity market”.

Italian Industry Minister Pier-Luigi Bersani had promised to notify Papoutsis once a compromise had been reached, but the Commissioner has still heard nothing formally.

The Greek-Italian electricity interconnector is one of four equivalent projects also involving France, Spain and Portugal which are intended to capitalise on the deal reached last year to open one-quarter of the Union's power market to competition from 1999.