The shareholders of Greece's national power utility PPC have approved the sale of a 24% stake in its power transmission network subsidiary ADMIE, to comply with the terms of a third international bailout.
Under the terms of the bailout agreement approved in August 2015, PPC (51% state-owned) must either divest a minority interest in ADMIE or fully privatise the transmission network by 2017. PPC also has to reduce its share on the retail market from the current 95% (96% in 2015 and around 92% in late March 2016) to 50% by 2020.
In July 2014, the previous government 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. 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. 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. In October 2015, Greece agreed to start the privatisation of 66% of ADMIE or to find alternative options to open up its electricity market and to divest a 17% stake in national power utility PPC (in 2016).