The recently re-elected Greek government is seeking alternatives to make its power transmission network operator ADMIE independent without privatising it, as planned in the latest EU-IMF bailout.
In July 2014, the previous government had passed a reform bill paving the way for the privatisation of a up to 30% stake in national power utility Public Power Corp (PPC, 51% state-owned) in 2015, spurring massive demonstrations and strikes in the company and leading to brief power outages. PPC is a major lignite mining company and the main power generation company (about 2/3 of total electricity generation) and supplies 97% of the retail market. Greece had agreed to start the privatisation of 66% of ADMIE in October 2015 or to find alternative options to open up its electricity market and to divest a 17% stake in national power utility PPC (in 2016). Privatisation plans, which also included oil refinery Hellenic Petroleum, national gas company DEPA (65% stake to be privatised) and power transmission grid ADMIE, were frozen by a new government in January 2015.
The privatisation was part of the country's efforts to liberalise its energy market, as required by the European Union and the IMF to disburse the next tranche of a €240bn bailout programme. The new government has agreed to implement a third €86bn bailout, including a series of privatisations in the next two years, but will negotiate on the liberalisation of its energy market and on the possible sale of PPC.
Interested in Global Energy Research?
Enerdata's premium online information service provides up-to-date market reports on 110+ countries. The reports include valuable market data and analysis as well as a daily newsfeed, curated by our energy analysts, on the oil, gas, coal and power markets.
This user-friendly tool gives you the essentials about the domestic markets of your concern, including market structure, organisation, actors, projects and business perspectives.