Keravnos ‘not sure if Papadopoulos realises I am’ a Diko member

Finance Minister Makis Keravnos on Tuesday said he is “not sure” if Diko leader Nicholas Papadopoulos realises that the minister is a member of the party, after Papadopoulos on Sunday called on him to resign over his reservations regarding the planned Great Sea Interconnector project. “I belong [to the party]. I am not sure if Papadopoulos realises I belong,” he said during an appearance on television channel Ant1. Asked whether he was upset by Papadopoulos’ comments, he said “they did not upset me at all, because I concern myself with serious matters which concern the people of this country and the future of this country”. Then asked if he is considering resigning, he asked “why would I be considering resigning?”. “I am not monitoring and I am not concerning myself with anyone’s statements,” he said. Papadopoulos on Sunday said that “on the one hand, the finance minister continues to demonise the project at every opportunity, without, however, referring us to any studies or even data which supports his point of view”. “Therefore, for us, a very serious question arises: why, according to the finance minister, is the president promoting a project which he believes will be disastrous for the country?” he asked. “If the finance minister disagrees with this project to such an extent, why does he not resign?” Keravnos historically unenthusiastic over interconnector Keravnos has historically been the least enthusiastic member of the cabinet with regard to the interconnector, which, if completed, will connect the energy grids of Cyprus, Greece and Israel. He warned earlier this month that the project may cost a great deal more than the €1.9 billion which is currently projected and questioned whether it will bring down consumer electricity prices. Previously, he had accused his Greek counterpart Stavros Papastavrou of “fake news” after Papastavrou said the Cypriot minister “does not show” the studies which he claimed demonstrate the project is not sustainable. Keravnos had said that studies which demonstrate this had been commissioned by Cypriot energy minister of the day George Papanastasiou, that they were “properly delivered” to the Greek energy ministry, and that they had even been sent to Papastavrou’s predecessor Theodoros Skylakakis. “We all know the studies and their findings,” he said, adding that “some people’s concerns are reasonable”, and that he himself has “many concerns”. Keravnos is not the only incumbent Cypriot minister to have raised questions regarding the impact of the interconnector on consumer energy prices, with fellow Diko member and Energy Minister Michael Damianos having said words to the same effect last month. “The implementation of the electrical interconnection between Cyprus and Crete will mean significant electricity for Cyprus, but this does not necessarily mean that the price of electricity will also decrease – it may increase,” he said. EU criticised Damianos for interconnector comments These comments drew swift responses from both the European Commission and Papanastasiou, with a spokesperson for the former telling the Cyprus Mail that “boosting electricity interconnections helps bring down energy prices by allowing the integration of more renewables in the system”. “Better and improved interconnectivity is essential in the EU – to bring down energy prices for our citizens and industry, and to secure our independence,” the spokesperson said. Papanastasiou, meanwhile, told the Cyprus Mail that “when a small market is opened to competition, you want to have access to as many different sources as possible so as to increase that competition”. “With a competitive market, the more energy sources and energy providers which exist inside that market, whether they be domestic providers or able to provide energy from further afield via an interconnection cable, the more competition there will be, which will incentivise those providers to offer lower prices to consumers,” he said. Keravnos is a longtime member of Diko, having served in the party’s internal bodies before being named in Papadopoulos’ father Tassos Papadopoulos’ first cabinet, as labour minister, in 2003. He was then moved to the finance ministry a year later, before leaving frontline politics in 2005 to become the chief executive of the Hellenic Bank, the predecessor of today’s Eurobank, and then returning to the fray in 2023 when Nikos Christodoulides named him as his finance minister.