Mitsotakis: Water utilities to return to full state control

Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, in unveiling his second-term government’s policy statements in Parliament on Thursday, reiterated that the water and sewerage companies in the greater Athens-Piraeus (EYDAP) and Thessaloniki (EYA.Th) areas will return to full state possession.

Mitsotakis had pledged to remove the two utilities from the so-called “super fund’s” portfolio, while on the recent campaign trail, as the potential privatization of water utilities was initially played up by opposition parties, especially leftist SYRIZA.

The super fund is officially known as the Hellenic Corporation of Assets and Participations, created by the then SYRIZA government in 2016 – after it acquiesced to and ratified a third memorandum bailout – to “collect under a single institutional structure significant government assets aiming to their more efficient operation and exploitation.”

The Greek PM said among the first draft bills to be tabled in Parliament this summer will be a restoration of full state control of the utilities, with EYDAP listed on the Athens Stock Exchange (ASE).