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Victoria Mindova

Greeks are willing to renegotiate the conditions for the construction of the Burgas-Alexandroupolis oil pipeline in order to realize the project, said Minister of Environment, Energy and Climate Change George  Papakonstantinou, answering Victoria Mindova’s question "What is your position concerning the Burgas-Alexandroupolis project after Bulgaria’s withdrawal? " Papakonstantinou replied, "The Burgas-Alexandroupolis project remains extremely important to us and we are willing to accomplish it. We are sorry for the specific position of the Bulgarian government at the moment and we would like the existing problems to be solved. We are ready to negotiate again with the other two parties to find an opportunity to realize the project in a different form."

Greece continues to seriously express its willingness to realize the Burgas-Alexandroupolis pipeline despite Bulgaria's firm position that it would like to abandon the project. While the situation with the pipeline is being clarified, Greece is seeking ways to utilize unused deposits of mineral resources because, despite the goodwill of the government, the development of renewable energy sources is still lagging.

Greece is one of the European countries with significant deposits of mineral resources. The latest data show that the deposits in the country are worth € 28 billion at current prices, said Yiannis Maniatis, Deputy Minister of Environment, Energy and Climate Change. 75% of the production of Greece, which corresponds to approximately € 1.5 billion, is exported. This sector employs 23,000 people directly and another 100,000 people indirectly. He believes the country is able to expand the extraction of mineral resources, which will significantly increase and improve the trade balance and the budget revenues.

There will be a ministerial invitation to tender for the development and extraction of gold, copper, silver and other metal mines in the area of ​​Kilkis by the end of the year. Initial estimates of operating revenue reached € 1.5 billion, which could be developed to reach turnovers of up to € 7 billion. Maniatis promised other government auctions would follow until March 2012. This will allow competitive private interests to enter the energy and extractive sector, which will break the state monopoly in this field.

Based on these plans, Maniatis expects that in the next 10 years, Greece would be able to meet between 20% - 30% of its energy needs from its own primary resources. "Every year, Greece spends about € 10-12 billion for imports of 99.5% of the oil products we need. The energy programme we have developed now will allow us to reduce its imports by 30% within 10 years due to the local production development."

Another trick that can help the recovery of local economy and meet European Union targets for a cleaner environment is the renovation of old buildings. It improves energy efficiency of houses, reduces energy consumption and brings new life to the faded construction sector. The poorest households who cannot afford to repair or fix them own the most energy inefficient houses. "From this perspective, subsidizing the renovation is social policy. Materials and labour in this sector are mainly Greek, which will give additional impetus in recovering the local economy. By improving the energy efficiency of buildings alone, we can restore 15,000 jobs."

Reforming the public sector functions and improving the public administration in Greece are of utmost importance. Now is the time, when the country can correct the mistakes and make a new start. In this sense, each ministry has a large amount of responsibilities that it should meet in order for the process to move forward.

The first concrete step by the Ministry of Environment, Energy and Climate Change in the process of relieving the state bureaucracy is the change in the law permitting natural compliance. About 23,000 such permits upon submission of the initial project plan are issued in Greece each year, which is a huge number in comparison with France, for example, which issues about 2,000 permits per year. The difference is that now the Ministry will give more importance to the phased control than to the original project approval, which may subsequently be amended. "The formation of a provisional coalition government was an important step to restore economic stability in the country. It will not be achieved unless the different forces in the country leave Lucas Papademos to do the work in the best possible way. Instead of making plans for the next election, it would be better to think about the next generations," said Maniatis in his commentary on the state of the political system in the country.