Chrysiida: Funding has been secured, but plant is still waiting
From the meeting at which funding for the facility was announced. Enimerosi archive photo
CORFU. Following Tsafos’ response regarding the €5 million in funding from the Ministry of Environment and Energy, Corfu MP Alexandros Avlonitis has turned to the Ministry of National Economy and Finance, asking where the funding process has stalled.
Alexander Avlonitis is now taking the question of the months-long delay to the Ministry of National Economy and Finance, seeking a specific answer on the funding and timetable for the desalination and water-softening plant at Chrysiida.
The Corfu MP is returning with an Urgent Question, approximately 16 months after the interministerial meeting of 23 May 2025, at which funding was announced as secured and the project was said to be moving forward. At the time, the Ionian Islands Regional Authority presented the meeting as a significant development for Corfu’s water supply future.
Despite those announcements, the project has yet to enter the construction phase. Avlonitis had raised the issue again in Parliament in early June. During the discussion of his previous Urgent Question, Deputy Minister for Environment and Energy Nikos Tsafos referred to the ministry’s intention to provide €5 million as its contribution to a programme agreement with the Ministry of National Economy and Finance and the Ionian Islands Regional Authority, but no specific timetable was given for the start of the works.
The history of the project goes back even further: the Chrysiida project already had a contractor but lacked the necessary funding allocation, while the plans were subsequently expanded to include desalination alongside water softening.
Avlonitis links the delay to Corfu’s acute water-supply problems, citing falling groundwater levels, the ageing water network and the island’s repeated declarations of a state of emergency due to water shortages.
In his new Urgent Question, he is asking the economic affairs team to clarify what stage the funding has reached, whether the amounts provided for have been paid and, if not, what is preventing their disbursement. He is also requesting a clear timetable for fulfilling the commitments made in May 2025.
Thus, more than a year after the government and regional authorities announced the project and the funding said to have been secured, the key question remains the same: when will Chrysiida move from commitments and — according to the announcements — secured funding to an actual construction site?
GIORGOS KATSAITIS
