Government backing for the creation of large corporate groups seems ill-fated

According to a number of his former academic colleagues, Economy and Finance Minister Nikos Christodoulakis in recent months has embarked on a lonely, titanic endeavor to reverse the negative political climate for the government through the promotion of large business deals and investment schemes, mainly in the banking and energy sector.

Most of them, maintaining a critical distance from the choices of their former colleague, take the view that Christodoulakis is attempting, for the last time, to “turn back the clock.”

To be sure, his first attempts came soon after his move from the Development Ministry to his present post, in the autumn of 2001, with the government’s direct or indirect backing of a number of big business deals that would have had a big impact on the country’s political scene and social situation.

Moves in this direction included the tender for the sale of a majority interest in Hellenic Petroleum with the involvement of Russia’s Lukoil petroleum group; the projected merger between the country’s two largest banks, National and Alpha, and the prospect of a gradual reduction in the public share in the new giant banking group; the search in Europe for strategic allies for/investors in the Public Power Corporation (PPC) and the Public Gas Corporation (DEPA); and the scenarios for a reorientation in the relations between OTE telecoms and privileged, long-term domestic suppliers.