Meridiam backs Cyprus cable before budget

Cyprus is the only EU member state whose electricity grid is not connected to Europe's (European Commission). A subsea cable from Crete would end that isolation. On 5 August, French infrastructure investor Meridiam signed to become majority shareholder of Great Sea Interconnector (GSI), the company developing the cable (Baird Maritime, Proto Thema). The project now has a serious financial sponsor. It does not yet have a committed construction budget.

What Meridiam bought — and what's still missing

Meridiam takes a stake above 50%. ADMIE, Greece's independent grid operator, had controlled the project since taking it over from an earlier development structure in October 2023. ADMIE stays on as minority partner, leading the engineering work during development and running the cable once built (Iefimerida). A separate agreement with French cable manufacturer Nexans covers seabed surveys, the preparatory work engineers need to confirm the cable route and seabed conditions (Newsit).

The sequence matters. Those surveys come before the final investment decision (FID), the point at which sponsors actually commit their money to the full build. Meridiam's entry gets the project to the survey stage. It does not get it past FID.

Financial terms are undisclosed. Baird Maritime reported that no deal details were published (Baird Maritime). One Greek outlet cited a €250m Meridiam investment, but no Meridiam source confirmed the figure publicly (in.gr). The exact stake, board composition and equity commitment remain unknown.

Some money is already moving. As To Brief previously reported, €251.4m had been paid to Nexans and 160 km of cable produced by end-2024, even though the full notice to proceed on a contract worth about €1.43bn plus VAT had not been issued. Nexans had also been negotiating a bridge order to cover the delay period (Capital.gr).

Who pays for the cable

The Crete-to-Cyprus leg carries a reported budget of about €1.9bn (Kathimerini, European Commission). An EU grant of roughly €657m covers about a third, drawn from the bloc's programme for cross-border energy infrastructure (EUR-Lex). That leaves about €1.24bn to come from three places: investor equity, bank loans and charges added to electricity bills.

The cost split hits Cyprus hardest. The agreed formula assigns 63% of the cable's costs to Cyprus and 37% to Greece, and Cypriot regulators have already approved €125m in bill charges during the construction phase (Kathimerini). The urgency behind that spending is real: Cyprus faces a potential power shortfall of roughly 750 MW after 2029 as ageing generators at Dhekelia and Vasiliko retire, and planning assumed the cable would be running by 2030 (Cyprus Mail).

Grid connection does not automatically mean lower bills, though. Grid investments are recovered through network charges, regular additions to electricity bills set by national regulators. Ireland's 2026 experience shows the pattern: a decision there added about €41 a year to household bills to fund upgrades (The Irish Times). Cyprus, paying for a proportionally larger piece of infrastructure relative to its small electricity market, faces a steeper per-household cost.

The European Court of Auditors has noted that EU cross-border grid projects frequently face delays even when the case for building them is strong (European Court of Auditors). GSI fits that pattern. The sponsors have proved renewed momentum. They have not yet published the documents that prove the project can be financed.