Greece is struggling to avoid the collapse of a second big privatisation, amid pressure from bidders for the state gaming monopoly to change terms of a deal agreed last month.
The problems with the €700 million sale of OPAP threaten to add to tension with Greece’s international creditors, who fear the slow pace of privatisations will require further more cuts to keep the country’s bailout programme on track.
Taiped failed to deliver one flagship privatisation when Gazprom unexpectedly pulled out of the bidding for the state natural gas supplier Depa. If the OPAP sale falls through, Greece’s privatisation programme will be in disarray, raising the possibility that the “troika” of international lenders – the International Monetary Fund, European Central Bank and EU Commission – could appoint international managers to replace Greek executives hired by the Athens government to sell €15 billion of state assets by 2016.
Critics of Greek privatisation say the OPAP dispute illustrates how Taiped’s mandate to “sell to the highest bidder” without giving priority to qualitative criteria or operational experience has undermined the programme. “The programme has suffered overall because of a lack of interest from globally recognised players”, said one consultant who declined to be named.
Mr Stavridis, Taiped’s third chairman in less than a year, said he was “cautiously optimistic” about persuading Emma Delta to drop its demands. “We negotiated the OPAP deal in a transparent way and in line with international practice. Now we have to make it stick”, he says.
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