Decarbonized Futures: Struggles Over Ecological Distribution in Greece

ABSTRACT

The energy sector in Greece has been undergoing multiple processes of diversification, privatization and neoliberal restructuring, following EU imperatives for common energy market and metabolized by fast-track policies of the indebted state. Based on long ethnographic fieldwork in the main coal-mining region of Greece, this article discusses the energopolitics of austerity linking the state-backed logics of accumulation to the lived experience of energy producers and consumers. The expropriation of surrounding-the-mine villages, the growing transformation of public/communal/private land into photovoltaic parks and the very directions of imagining the future fuel multiscalar social and moral struggles. These reveal not only the horizontal integration of nature into capital valorization, though – albeit reduced – coal production and the spectacular investment to renewable energy ventures, but also the vertical processes of subsumption, enabled by financial engineering and rent-extraction. The model of energy transition rests on an uneven regime of ecological distribution that shapes but also exploits growing intra-class conflicts, propelled by the very contradictory nature of public power companies within each historical capitalist moment.

KEYWORDS:

• Energy transition
• social conflicts
• decarbonization
• privatization
• Greece

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 https://www.orykta.gr/images/pdf/leukomata/DEI.pdf. Accessed 18 March 2021.

2 https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELEX:31996L0092&from=EN https://eur-lex.europa.eu/resource.html?uri=cellar:caeb5f68-61fd-4ea8-b3b5-00e692b1013c.0004.02/DOC_1&format=PDF https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELEX:32009L0072&from=EN. Accessed 16 February 2021.

3 https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELEX:52014DC0330&from=EN and https://eur-lex.europa.eu/resource.html?uri=cellar:fa6ea15b-b7b0-11e6-9e3c-01aa75ed71a1.0001.02/DOC_1&format=PDF. Accessed 30 March 2019.

4 https://www.minfin.gr/documents/20182/3022979/n4389_2016.pdf/a57ba6e2-3bb7-4bd2-b71f-4c959082b393. Accessed 16 February 2021.

5 http://ec.europa.eu/competition/antitrust/cases/dec_docs/38700/38700_2053_3.pdf. Accessed 30 March 2019.

6 https://ec.europa.eu/energy/sites/ener/files/el_final_necp_main_en.pdf. Accessed 16 February 2021. For a critical appraisal see Zervas (2020).

7 https://www.dei.gr/el/oruxeia/apothemata-kai-poiotita. Accessed 5 March 2021.

8 https://archive.pdm.gov.gr/images/stories/arxeia/stratigikossxediasmos.pdf. Accessed 5 March 2021.

9 The number of regular workers in the region fell from 9000 in 1997 to 4000 in 2012. Labor costs were reduced by over 2,800,000,000 euros between 2010 and 2015. Permanent staff had their average salary cut by 37% and precarious workers suffered even bigger cuts. https://www.dei.gr/el/i-dei/kentro-tupou/deltia-tupou/deltia-tupou-2015/martios-2015/dieukriniseis-gia-ti-sullogiki-sumvasi-ergasias-mi/param/t/ECPrint.aspx. Accessed 19 September 2019.

10 https://pta.pdm.gr/studies/odikos-chartis-metavasisi-sti-metalignitiki-periodo-gia-tin-perifereia-dytikis-makedonias/. Accessed 8 March 2021.

11 Gas industry received public funding through the Capacity Availability Certificates (law 3426/2005, FEK B 655/2005) and the Transitory Flexibility Remuneration Mechanism, as compensation for a potential electricity supply, due to the unstable and unpredicted nature of renewable sources (law 4389/2016).

12 Fieldwork and interviews were carried out in Greek, the translations are my own. All the names used are pseudonyms in order to secure anonymity.

13 Kiriakos refers to Prodromos Bodosakis, founder of Liptol industry (lignite products and first power-plant) in 1956, later bought by DEI.

14 https://www.dei.gr/Documents2/INVESTORS/00-Announcements/%CE%91%CE%9D_2021/PPC%20Renewables%20JV%20GR.pdf. Accessed 26 December 2021.

15 https://www.sdam.gr/sites/default/files/2020-12/%CE%95%CF%80%CE%B9%CE%BA%CE%B1%CE%B9%CF%81%CE%BF%CF%80%CE%BF%CE%B9%CE%B7%CE%BC%CE%AD%CE%BD%CE%BF%20%CE%A3%CE%94%CE%91%CE%9C_11.12.2020_0.pdf. Accessed 9 March 2021.

16 Besides mega-photovoltaic projects, private global firms acquired licenses for wind farms on almost all surrounding mountain ridges.

17 see the cases of Canadian El Dorado Gold’s mining in Chalkidiki or Industrial wind parks scattered all over Greece (Calvário, Velegrakis, and Kaika 2016).

18 https://kentro-typou.dei.gr/media/1410/%CE%B4%CE%B5%CE%BB%CF%84%CE%AF%CE%BF_%CF%84%CF%8D%CF%80%CE%BF%CF%85_%CF%86%CE%B2_%CE%BB%CE%B9%CE%B3%CE%BD%CE%B9%CF%84%CE%B9%CE%BA%CE%AD%CF%82_31052021.pdf. Accessed 28 December 2021.

19 Ottoman land-tax, tag referring to newly introduced real-estate taxation.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the European Research Council under Advanced Grant “Grassroots Economics” 2013–2018 [IDEAS-ERC-FP7, N°323743]; the Greek State Scholarships Foundation and the European Social Fund under Grant Reinforcement of Postdoctoral Researchers [MIS-5033021]; the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation/AEI/10.13039/501100011033 under Grant Juan de la Cierva Incorporation 2018 [IJC2018-035024-I].