The privatization of state-held assets is a process that is very pressing for Greece, but it must be made as simple as possible and carried out with the utmost transparency.

The demands being made by the troika, however, pose the risk of pushing the process off the right track by forcing the sell-offs to be rushed through at a time when the pressure to raise revenues from the sale of state assets is very intense and may lead to bad calls.

At the same time, concerns being raised by certain European countries and the United States that cite geopolitical interests in their objections to potential deals between the Greek state and Russian or Chinese companies are being unreasonable, to say the least.

Competitions are won by the party that submits the best offer, and those who have geopolitical objections should make a counteroffer of their own rather than complain about the direction a tender is taking.