20417 - Negotiations and Licensing round

N. Lygeros
Translated from the Greek by Athena Kehagias

The professionalism of the large Licensing round regarding the twenty marine plots of the Greek EEZ had very positively impressed the EU member states both when it was presented on July 1, 2014, and when it was published in the EU Official Journal on November 18, 2014.
Then,the Licensing round had a six-month deadline for submitting the nominations.
Later, the Licensing round received a two months extension, in order for contacts to be made with Russia and China.
Meanwhile, the financial negotiations with their associated delays, reached up to that timeframe.
And while it seems that after that, we did not utilise that large Licensing round, probably because of the absence of those competent to manage it, now we see that we have to promote it, in order for all to see its value and its importance for our homeland, since it alone proves, that we have strategic perspectives.
It’s not regarding just words, with which we are fed up, because it’s obvious on what should have happened, how meaningless they are.
So the paradox regarding the EEZ, is starting to emerge as a resolution context, especially since the marketability of the deposit Aphrodite has been proven in plot 12 of the Cypriot EEZ.
Because we are talking about strategic reserves, already estimated by the Deutsche Bank in December 2012.
In other words, it’s not just us who are talking about the expected reserves of the Greek EEZ.
Others know it as well, but they were never before convinced, that Greece would enter in this process actively, both with the EEZ issue, which proceeds with the trilateral ,Greece- Israel-Cyprus, and Egypt-Greece-Cyprus, and with the 20 marine plots of the Ionian Sea, below the southern Peloponnese and south of Crete.
Now they are convinced!