Power utility PPC’s strategic moves into southeast European markets are becoming a powerful tool of economic diplomacy for Greece and the country’s interests in the wider region as control of energy corridors and resources is equivalent to geopolitical power.

PPC’s chief executive Giorgos Stassis and his associates have been making more regular and intensified contact of late with government officials in the wider region and across the Atlantic.

Stassis’ meeting with Geoffrey Pyatt, the US’s Assistant Secretary of State for Energy Resources, in Washington just over a week ago, followed by a meeting earlier this week with Romanian Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu, highlight the important diplomatic role now been played by PPC.

During their Washington meeting, Stassis and the US’s Assistant Secretary of State for Energy Resources discussed how PPC could play a more active role through east Europe’s major energy corridors and the US-backed Three Seas initiative, involving 13 Baltic Sea, Black Sea and Adriatic Sea countries and aiming to offer protection against the threat of Russia.

The US sees Greece’s initiatives in the wider region as moves that are aligned with America’s geostrategic interests, especially at a time when Russia’s war in Ukraine has turned arming eastern Europe against Russian influence into a priority.