Ch. Panagiotopoulos (TERNA): Visibility and cooperation for projects with maximum benefit and minimum cost to citizens

‘ We need better visibility and more cooperation in the design, study, financing and ultimately in the construction and operation of these, in order to have the maximum possible benefit for the citizens of our country,” said its CEO, Christos Panagiotopoulos, in his location at the Conference on Infrastructure and Transport. Specifically, during the Round Table of Construction, the CEO of TERNA said that “At this moment we are talking – apart from some projects that are in the process of maturation or some general positions on the priorities of the state – there is no clear picture. It is reasonable for the state to want to move everything forward, but what are those that really have priority as a species and what specific projects in each species have gone higher on the agenda?”. In addition, Mr Panagiotopoulos also made special mention of the latest phenomenon, where technical companies are ultimately unable to participate in competitions for projects that are important and necessary, as projects are auctioned with immature studies or incomplete tender issues, while the comments made by the market during the preparatory phase are often ignored. “Some sly can say that companies want everything cut and sewn up in their measure, but that’s not the truth. We are trying – obviously and taking into account the sustainability of a project and the calculated profitability – to demonstrate with our experience from the field that certain things need to be corrected or that they can be done more efficiently. However, if our participation in this consultation is ultimately not taken into account and the competitions are carried out in terms that make the projects unsustainable or even worse precarious, there can be no wonder afterwards why there was no participation,” noted Mr Panagiotopoulos. The CEO of TERNA also stood on the issue of available resources, saying that more than EUR 1 billion of the Public Investment Programme obviously cannot meet all the infrastructure needs, while the market has already lived on cases with necessary projects that were auctioned and declared contractors without the necessary public or European funds being even guaranteed. “We understand that not everything can be done, nor can everything be done together. But it is necessary, in a country such as Greece, that needs are constantly growing – due to the ageing of infrastructure, due to economic growth and the climate crisis – and the possibilities are finite, to use every available resource, every available assistance and every opportunity to be able to do as much as we can,” he noted, adding that “we have also an excellent tool, such as the Model Proposals, which accelerates and studies but also allows private capital to be leveraged – a tool that was regulated by the previous political leadership of the FIE in New Democracy and which remains inactive along with the proposals already submitted by the construction groups, in the context of the relevant institution.”