Our View: EAC unions will do everything to maintain the monopoly
Energy Minister George Papanastasiou put the cat among the pigeons with his idea of taking the ownership and control of the electricity grid away from the Electricity Authority of Cyprus (EAC) and giving it to a state-owned company. The idea was presented to the EAC board a couple of days ago and the minister gave it a month to respond.
Papanastasiou wants the establishment of the state-owned company so it could invest the €100 million in the Great Sea Interconnector on behalf of Cyprus, which is a condition for the project going ahead. If the EAC board does not take a position on the matter when the month is up, the government would use the Cyprus Hydrocarbons Company, which is state-owned, to invest the €100 million in the GSI, Papanastasiou said.
What is puzzling is why Papanastasiou has suggested taking the ownership of the electricity grid away from the EAC, which was guaranteed to spark the opposition of the unions, which have always fought to maintain the monopoly of the EAC. If it is a state company he wants to invest in GSI, he could use the Cyprus Hydrocarbons Company without involving the EAC and its unions in the matter.
Admittedly, it would make sense for the company that owns the power grid to have a shareholding in the GSI as this would be part of the transmission of electricity operation and the truth is that the grid should not be under the control of the EAC, which is a power producer that would be competing with other producers. The Anastasiades government tried to make the transmission system operator an independent entity but the unions, which act as if they own the EAC, were up in arms threatening ‘dynamic action.’ The government backed down and came up with a ludicrous compromise, by which the transmission system operator would be ‘independent’ but run by the EAC.
It is entirely possible that Papanastasiou’s idea aimed to kill two birds with one stone – make the transmission system operator a state-owned company, independent of the EAC, which could, at the same time, invest in GSI and participate in the project. If this was the plan, he underestimated the reaction of the unions which have always treated the EAC as some kind of workers’ cooperative. A cooperative enjoying monopolistic status and fleecing its customers while its workers are paid big wages and enjoy an enviable package of benefits.
As patron saint of the unions, Akel wasted no time in attacking Papanastasiou’s idea, claiming the existence of a plot to lead “the EAC to paralysis and decline” and then privatising it. It repeated the vacuous, socialist rhetoric about the Authority belonging to the people. “Semi-governmental organisations and the national wealth of the Cypriot people are not for sale, but on the contrary, they must be at the service of the economy and society as levers of development and welfare.”
This is the nonsense Akel comes up with to defend a state monopoly that has ensured Cyprus households and businesses pay extremely high electricity rates. The Cypriot people have seen no benefit from this national wealth, which is exploited exclusively by the EAC’s employees at the expense of all its subscribers. Papanastasiou’s idea has no chance of being accepted by the EAC unions that will do everything they can to maintain the monopoly and keep the national wealth in their hands.