The battle over Psytalleia and the PM's intervention

A letter sent to Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis by France's Suez group appears to have been the reason for a battle to erupt between Ellaktor and Intrakat, who leads a joint venture running a waste management plant on the island of Psyttaleia, near Athens.

After the letter, seen by Business Daily, was sent to the management of EYDAP, who launched the tender following long delays from the previous board, the water company was invited to examine the three offers that had been submitted.

Initially, the tender committee had proposed to EYDAP the ruling out of the following joint ventures: Intrakat-Terna-Suez, Mytilineos-Konstandinidis-ACEA. This resulted in the 260 million euro contract going to AKTOR-AVAX, who have been managing the plant since 2009.

In order to lift the deadlock after the intervention from the prime minister's office, EYDAP decided to ask for assistance in the assessment procedure from the Technical Chamber of Greece (TEE). More specifically, EYDAP asked TEE to recommend whether the two rival bids to Aktor-Avax should be rejected.

In the letter, Suez said that the previous board at EYDAP was aware of the fact that the contract expired in March last year but did not launch a new tender. Instead, EYDAP's board decided in February to extend the current agreement.

Just ahead of Greece's elections, a new tender had been prepared for the plant but the previous EYDAP board was forced to call it off due to opposition to the deal.

In the letter, Suez said that terms in the new tender did not allow for any other Greek company from getting the agreement, apart from the current joint venture running the waste project - only if a Greek company hooked up with a foreign partner, as was the case with Intrakat and Mytilineos.

"Just for the translation of documents asked for by the tender, 20 days are needed," reads the letter. The Frech group argues that the tender paperwork it had been given by EYDAP was missing crucial technical details. EYDAP refused to hand over these details even when Suez specifically asked for them.

The other side says that its rivals were not unfairly treated and that there is an attempt to get them out of Psyttalei despite having run it successfully for years. It looks like the current management deal, that runs out in March, will be extended.