Greek government is determined to prohibit black outs as the unionist of Greek Public Power Company threaten to turn off the electricity, if the government proceeds with the sale of 30% of PPC to private investors.
The unionists claim that the sale of so-called “little DEH” will alternate the ‘public character of the state-run enterprise’.
As of tomorrow, July 2nd 2014, the union GENOP-DEH will launch 48-hour rolling strikes and some unionists told media that they will turn off the lights “one minute after midnight on Wednesday.”
On its side the government says that it will not “watch the country sinking in the darkness without doing anything” and sends the message to “mobilize” the DEH personnel. That is to ‘force DEH personnel to return to work for reasons of public interest’.
The government claims that the privatization is for the benefit of both the PPC and the public.
Of course, the big question is: how many and according to what criteria current PPC subscribers will be transferred to the new privatized DEH and under what conditions and pricing.
According to Greek media 2,000,000 PPC clients (private households, businesses) will have to be transferred to the new investor.
Concerns are high, whether the “social pricing” will be kept. Under social pricing vulnerable society groups get a 42% discount.
Samaras’ coalition partner PASOK has apparently prepared some draft changes so that the social pricing, the personnel rights etc.
Main opposition party SYRIZA accuses the government for breaking apart DEH in ‘good’ and ‘bad’ and that the new privatized DEH will have only customers who pay their bills and have no debts.
The draft bill for the PPC privatization is to be discussed in the Parliament on Wednesday. Τhe privatization of 30% of Greek PPC is one of the preconditions posed by the Troika for the next bailout tranche.
At the same time, many Greeks remember with shock and awe the fiasco with the first attempt for private investors and free electricity market, a fiasco that ended sending the board members of ENERGA and HELLAS POWER to justice as they allegedly embezzled €200million to private accounts in foreign banks. The money was the “emergency property tax” that the ENERGA and HELLAS POWER customers had paid via their electricity bills as required by the Greek Finance Ministry and the Troika in 2011.
Will the Greek government manage to add enough safety guarantees for the new investor? Many doubt it.
PS Black out in the middle of summer and tourist season? For tourists could be a kind of “adventure Greece” theme vacations. But for our babies and elderly it could be an unbearable torture.
