The European Union has earmarked 657 million euros ($736 million) for the construction of a 2,000-megawatt undersea electricity cable that will link the power grids of Israel, Cyprus and Greece.

The news was announced by Cypriot Energy Minister, Natasa Pilides, on Thursday.

Pilides told reporters the funding is Cyprus’ largest-ever investment as well as the lion’s share of the total sum that the EU’s Connecting Europe Facility, which bankrolls infrastructure projects, has allocated to a single project this year.

READ MORE: Greece, Israel, Cyprus sign deal to link electricity in world’s longest undersea power cable.

According to AP News, Pilides said the money enables crews to start constructing the segment of the cable that will connect Cyprus with the Greek island of Crete, whose total cost is estimated at roughly 1.6 billion euros ($1.8 billion).

The President of Cyprus, Nicos Anastasiades, issued a statement on Twitter after the announcement and said that the grant approval was a “landmark decision” by the EU as the cable project will end Cyprus’ energy isolation and connect the Eastern Mediterranean with Europe.

READ MORE: Turkey slams Mediterranean undersea cable deal between Greece, Cyprus and Israel.

“A project that ensures the energy efficiency of our country and opens the way to the European market, while strengthening our goals for the transition to a green economy,” Anastasiades said.

Pilides and her Greek and Israeli counterparts signed an agreement last October to speed up technical work on the cable dubbed the “Eurasia Interconnector.”

The agreement aimed to expedite permits and approvals for feasibility studies and to help the three countries’ national electricity co-ordinators co-operate on how best to move forward.

The cable’s first phase is expected to be completed by 2025.

READ MORE: Israel and Greece officially sign record $1.65 billion defence deal.

Source: AP News.

Citizens and officials across Greece marked International Holocaust Remembrance Day on Thursday.

Prime Minister, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, released a statement on social media to honour the day, stressing “we do not forget” those who lost their lives during the Holocaust.

“We do not forget our fellow Greeks and all other Jewish people who perished at Auschwitz and other camps of horror,” he said on Twitter.

“International Holocaust Remembrance Day is a guiding beacon for our daily action against racism and antisemitism.”

The Greek Foreign Ministry also touched on the need to fight anti-Semitism across the world.

“It is our duty to never forget what happened in Europe just eight decades ago. Let us ask ourselves, as did one of the first Holocaust survivors who wrote about his inhuman experience, Primo Levi, ‘If This Is a Man’,” the Ministry said in a statement.

The ministry remarked that the memory of the Holocaust is disappearing, with one in twenty Europeans never having heard of it.

“At the same time, new threats are emerging. Hate speech, racism, discrimination, anti-Semitism, Holocaust denial. It is our duty to build a wall against these threats. To put more emphasis on education,” it added.

Elsewhere, the Greek President, Katerina Sakellaropoulou, attended an event at the Holocaust Memorial of Greek Jews in Thiseio.

Sakellaropoulou laid a wreath at the memorial and stressed that the message “Never Again” was a call to actively remember and ponder the reasons that gave rise to Nazism, racism and anti-Semitism in order to prevent such crimes from ever happening again.

“Only then will ‘Never Again’ take on its true meaning,” she said.

The Greek President also encouraged people to remember the tens of thousands of Greek Jews that perished during the Holocaust, wiping out a significant part of Greece’s multicultural tradition and almost the entire Jewish communities of Thessaloniki, Ioannina and Corfu.

Greece’s main opposition leader, Alexis Tsipras, has filed a motion of no confidence in the government, saying its bungled response to a winter blizzard this week showed it was no longer fit for office.

Submitting the censure motion, Tsipras said the administration of Greek Prime Minister, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, was “the worst the country has known” since the collapse of military rule in 1974.

“On behalf of SYRIZA – Progressive Alliance’s parliamentary group, I submit a motion of censure against the worst government the country has known since the fall of the dictatorship. There are no dead ends in a democracy,” Mitsotakis said.

READ MORE: Heavy snow blankets Athens, Greek islands causing major disruptions.

“Because we have the obligation to turn rage and despair into a force of political change, my conviction is that this government has to go as soon as possible… It has to go before it is too late – too late for society, the country and democracy.”

Tsipras said the government failed in every emergency of the past few years, such as the wildfires that devastated parts of Attica and Evia last summer, the COVID-19 pandemic and the snowstorms – both this week’s and last winter’s.

READ MORE: Army called out in Greece to help repair widespread damage from snowstorm.

An estimated 4,000 drivers were left stranded in cars for hours in sub-zero temperatures as the storm pounded Athens on Wednesday. The Greek army and municipal crews were called in to evacuate motorists trapped in their vehicles.

Mitsotakis apologised for the state’s lack of preparedness, accepting “mistakes and shortcomings” in its handling of the snowstorm known as Elpis.

READ MORE: Greek PM apologises for snowstorm ordeal which left thousands stranded.

Tsipras’ move means there will be three days of parliamentary debate and this will end with a vote on Sunday night.

The government, which has been in office since July 2019, said the motion offered an opportunity for it to outline its achievements on multiple fronts.

Source: The Guardian.