Assessing the OTE deal at face value
A strategic partner with enormous experience in the telecommunications field is buying a share in OTE, Greece’s biggest telecom operator. The company wants to invest in Greece, one assumes, in order to make money. It’s up to us (and the terms of the expected deal) to also make some profit out of this. Such agreements usually prompt a backlash in this country from people who lash out against the alleged «sellout» and the «scandals.» Reactions are sometimes so huge that they swallow up any reformist argument. After all, the calls about the government being the single share holder in OTE are still vivid. This time, all sides ought to take a more sober look at things. They must shed their uncompromising views and examine the proposed deal at face value and not merely on the basis of groundless arguments about the need to protect «national security.» Above all, they must bring national growth into the equation, given that the telecommunications sector is key to the nascent society of knowledge.
