The European Union’s push to build a more integrated electricity grid is running into an increasingly familiar obstacle — geopolitics.
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The Great Sea Interconnector, a €1.9 billion project designed to link the electricity networks of Greece, Cyprus and Israel, has suffered repeated delays as maritime disputes in the eastern Mediterranean complicate work on the politically sensitive sections of the route.
For Brussels, the stakes go beyond a single infrastructure project as the roughly 1,200-kilometre subsea cable would end Cyprus’s status as the EU’s only member state without an electricity interconnection to the bloc’s wider grid.
The project would also strengthen regional energy security and potentially allow greater use of renewable power, with Cyprus benefiting from lower electricity bills.
The European Commission has already committed €657 million to the project and has designated it a strategic project as the EU seeks to overhaul its ageing electricity networks and accommodate rapidly growing volumes of clean power.
But the GSI is now facing a combination of geopolitical, financial and commercial obstacles — illustrating the difficulty of turning Brussels’ ambition for a more connected European energy system into physical infrastructure.
A European energy project caught in a regional dispute
The most immediate geopolitical challenge comes from Turkey, whose competing claims over maritime jurisdiction overlap the proposed cable route.
The GSI would pass through waters south and east of the Greek islands of Crete and Kasos, where Greece says it has sovereign rights over its continental shelf and exclusive economic zone under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea.
Turkey, which is not a party to the convention, disputes Greece’s interpretation, arguing that islands should not automatically generate full maritime zones where their claims overlap with the continental shelf of the mainland.
The dispute has already had practical consequences for the project.
In 2024, Greek authorities delayed parts of the offshore survey programme after Turkish naval vessels were deployed in areas where survey ships were expected to operate. Although the incidents did not escalate into a direct confrontation, they highlighted the risks for infrastructure projects crossing contested maritime areas.
Klaus Dodds, professor of geopolitics and executive dean at Royal Holloway, University of London, said Turkey views the GSI as challenging the maritime boundaries and exclusive economic zones claimed by Greece and Cyprus.
“The GSI, if completed, is more than a power transmission cable,” Dodds told Euronews.
It would also demonstrate a close alignment between Greece, Cyprus and Israel — a geopolitical combination Ankara views with suspicion, the academic added.
Turkey’s opposition is also linked to its own competing vision for energy connectivity.
Dodds said Ankara would prefer to develop a rival underwater electricity link between Turkey and the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, a breakaway state which is recognised only by Turkey.
The Commission, however, has made clear that the GSI is the only project it is politically and financially supporting to end Cyprus’s electricity isolation, reflecting a wider struggle over the future of the eastern Mediterranean.
“The EU has a strategic interest in a stable and secure environment in the Eastern Mediterranean and remains committed to defending its interests and those of its member states as well as to upholding regional stability,” a Commission spokesperson told Euronews.
Turkey’s “Blue Homeland” doctrine places strong emphasis on Ankara’s maritime claims and sovereign rights in the region, while closer cooperation between Greece, Cyprus and Israel has added another layer to the rivalry.
Since the fall of the Assad regime in Syria in December 2024, Turkey and Israel have increasingly regarded one another as national security threats, according to Haşim Tekineş, policy researcher at the Institute for Diplomacy and Economy.
Against that backdrop, the growing alignment between Greece and Israel has further heightened Ankara’s concerns.
Tekineş said Turkey sees the strengthening relationship between Greece and Israel as a potential attempt to encircle and isolate it.
He also argued that Ankara could see the completion of the GSI as a loss of both geopolitical leverage and economic opportunity, particularly because Turkey seeks to position itself as an energy bridge between Europe, the Middle East and other regions.
Brussels tries to keep the project on track
For the EU, the challenge is not simply how to build a cable across the Mediterranean, but how to advance a strategic energy project in one of Europe’s most contested maritime regions.
Energy Commissioner Dan Jørgensen has stressed the importance of international law and multilateralism in maintaining a stable environment in the eastern Mediterranean and developing a cooperative relationship between the EU and Turkey.
The Commission has also warned against Turkish plans for a separate subsea connection between Cyprus and Northern Cyprus.
Meanwhile, Turkey has been preparing a revised maritime doctrine. Ankara announced in May that it intended to enshrine its maritime doctrine in law, although parliamentary consideration was subsequently delayed until October.
The final wording remains unclear. Turkish researcher Tekineş said that even closer ties between Turkey and the EU or US were unlikely to make Greek-Israeli cooperation, or projects such as the GSI, acceptable to Ankara.
That leaves the cable exposed to a broader geopolitical rivalry that could continue to complicate its development.
The other problem: who pays?
However, Turkey is only one of the obstacles facing the project.
Greece and Cyprus have also struggled for years to agree on how the multi-billion-euro interconnector should be financed and how its costs should ultimately be recovered from electricity consumers.
In addition to millions of euros in EU funding, Greece’s electricity transmission operator, the Independent Power Transmission Operator (IPTO), would finance the remainder of the project, which it took over from the GSI project, formerly known as the EuroAsia Interconnector. The project was originally scheduled to become operational in 2024.
Under the latest arrangement, Cyprus was expected to cover 63% of the cost, around €786 million, while Greece would cover 37%, or roughly €460 million.
Greece argues that Cyprus — as the main beneficiary and the EU’s last isolated electricity market — should shoulder a larger share of the financial burden. Cyprus, meanwhile, has sought assurances that consumers will not be left carrying high costs before the cable becomes operational.
Athens and Nicosia asked the European Investment Bank in April to review the project’s viability, cost forecasts and integration into the electricity market. Additional financing or investors could be sought if the EIB concludes that the original €1.9 billion estimate has increased.
The project is effectively being reassessed after an earlier financing plan failed to move forward. That proposal had relied on EU grants, European Investment Bank loans and investment from the project’s promoters, but the EIB previously raised doubts over its financial viability.
An EIB spokesperson told Euronews that discussions over the GSI financing “are ongoing” and any potential financing request would be assessed in line with the bank’s policies and procedures.
“At this stage, no conclusion has been reached on whether financing will be considered and we do not comment in detail on the appraisal process before its completion,” the EIB spokesperson added.
