Recovery fund losses and incorrect milestones
In-government friction and leaks over long delays in Recovery Fund projects, a topic this column has recently covered, are a nail in the face of market people’s certainty that “a certain loss of hundreds of millions of euros if Italy and Spain don’t back down.”, to extend beyond 2025″.
Before we get to 2025 and a possible extension, Greece has some milestones to meet. It commits to completing a certain percentage of the project within a certain period of time. “Even these milestones were entered incorrectly,” they explain.
For example, they expect to draw 100 or 200 million euros with a specific physical object, with the construction of a part of the project that the authorities know cannot be built in the time they have committed to.
Greece is thus at risk of not meeting the milestones and not being able to receive repayments of the recovery fund even from the first half of 2024. “The pending third installment may also be the last for the next two years,” they say. the most pessimistic.
Ministers whistle nonchalantly
What causes great irritation in the Maximos Palace is not only the risk of losing the most important funds for critical projects. They hope for an extension with the back of Italy, which has to absorb 100 billion euros by 2025!
The mood is heavy for some ministers who have three and four big projects in the recovery fund that have been delayed for more than six months without any real progress.
“Even the ministers who seem to be very active in their statements are doing almost nothing to continue the deadlocked tenders or to announce the projects and programs that were launched at the beginning of the year ending,” argue the officials of the Ministry of Economy and Finance.
On the contrary, there are ministers who, because they have been “eating wood” in recent months, have started applying for tenders for the Recovery Fund. Example; Vassilis Kikilias.
BSE and “Greek production”
Yesterday, on the same day that Michalis Stassinopoulos, of Biohalco and “Hellenic Production” presented proposals for the support and development of the industry, the BSE management decided to organize an event on cyber security with the Minister of Digital Governance, Dimitris Papastergia, and distinguished guest experts on hacker protection.
The industry side believes that the BSE did not support the industry enough during the energy crisis. And how could he do that when the board of the association includes businessmen whose profits have skyrocketed precisely because of the crisis. SEV replies that they have had many negotiations with the relevant ministers on the issue of energy.
A meeting with Foreign Minister Theodoros Skylakakis was also held recently and some measures were agreed upon. However, in order to apply some of them, modifications are required.
And between us, this obsession of the BSE management for startups, when they see the closure of industrial units across the country, it shows something!
TAIPED real estate investments that are not made!
Those who remember the famous proposals of G. Stournaras – Stefanos Manos and other personalities react with a bitter smile, according to which the public would collect tens of billions by exploiting state assets.
He sees the wealth of investment properties provided or sold by TAIPED over the past decade. Most are below zero, such as the NCH Capital project in Corfu, in which the foundation stone was laid by Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis himself, the Ivan Savvidis project in Paliouri, Chalkidiki, etc.
Some other properties are put up for tender again and again without the investment finally taking place as Ververonda in Hermione. In the last competition, there was finally interest from the Goutou family, a well-known large broker and large landowner in the area.
Why are Tamvakakis, Karamouzis, Theodoropoulos entering the waters?
Two well-known former bankers Ap. Tamvakakis and N. Karamouzis, as well as entrepreneur Spyros Theodoropoulos, are trying to use the strong presence they already have, both in the food and product distribution sector. So they agreed to acquire a majority stake in the company S. Mendekidis SA, which bottles “Seli” and “Dios” waters. It looks like they won’t be limited to just this particular bottled water initiative.
Skrekas – PAEGAE meeting
Last week, the office of Development Minister Kostas Skrekas was visited by the “General Warehouses” Administration (PAEGAE), a logistics subsidiary of the National Bank. PAEGAE has the largest stand-alone private facility in the logistics sector in Magoula Attica and could be a target for acquisition by powerful groups in the sector under certain conditions.
It is more than 1,000 acres with 105,000 m2 of covered areas. The meeting with K. Skrekas took place on the occasion of an investment to increase the covered areas in Magoul by 150,000 square meters. They have been trying to secure the relevant licenses on PAEGAE for five years now and it seems they are very close.