Our View: Energy fiasco underlines that state unable to provide cost-effective solutions

Energy Minister George Papanastasiou’s decision to write to the Cyprus Energy Regulatory Authority (Cera), asking it to end the country’s status of ‘emerging’ market was long overdue and he should be congratulated for taking it. Cyprus had declared itself an emerging energy market, not because it was in the best interest of the economy, but so it would maintain the monopoly of the EAC for some years longer by creating another state monopoly for the supply of natural gas. The existence of monopolies is permitted in an emerging market.