Greece: EUR 20m EU CEF Digital Grant to Wings ICT Solutions for East Aegean Network (EAN) Subsea Cable Protection

Mechanism

Wings ICT Solutions Technologies AE — the same Greek ICT/telecoms R&D firm coordinating the Multimodal-5G GR-BG Corridor grant filed separately (see 2025-11-03-greece-wings-ict-multimodal-5g-cef-digital-grant) — was also selected as coordinator for "East Aegean Network" (EAN, proposal code 24-EL-DIG-EAN) under the CEF Digital Gateways strand (topic CEF-DIG-2024-GATEWAYSWORKS), a separate funding line from the 5G-Corridors strand that financed Multimodal-5G. Per Wings' own project description, EAN covers "the protection and digital supervision of critical subsea cable infrastructures" connecting the Aegean islands — distinct from Wings' earlier SEA-SPINE project (EUR 7.8m, new submarine fibre-laying across 11 islands) and from its reserve-list "AI SUB" award (EUR 6.19m, Aegean/Ionian submarine backbone). Both the EAN selection and the Multimodal-5G selection were adopted the same day (3 November 2025) under the same Commission Implementing Decision, C(2025)7293, and both were publicly announced by HaDEA on 20 November 2025 as part of a 56-project, EUR 389 million package.

EAN's EUR 20 million award is the single largest CEF Digital grant Wings has received to date, roughly double the combined value of its three other awards in this call round (WAVEO EUR 6.38m, Multimodal-5G EUR 10.1m, 5G-BRIDGE EUR 6.9m — cumulative Wings CEF Digital funding from this one call exceeds EUR 43 million before the reserve-list AI SUB award). It sits within the EU's broader post-2024 subsea-cable-resilience funding wave (EU Cable Security Action Plan, 2025-02-21; EU Submarine Cable Recommendation 2024/779) that treats protection/monitoring of undersea cable infrastructure — not just new cable-laying — as a strategic priority following Baltic Sea cable-sabotage incidents.

Downstream implications

• Extends the EU's post-2024 subsea-cable-security funding pattern beyond

new cable construction (PISCES, MEDUSA AFRICA 2) into cable protection and monitoring systems for a geographically exposed, multi-island member-state region (the Aegean).

• Further concentrates EU CEF Digital connectivity funding for Greece in a

single small coordinator (Wings ICT Solutions), now running at least six parallel CEF Digital projects (WAVEO, Multimodal-5G, 5G-BRIDGE, EAN, SEA-SPINE, AI SUB) — a capacity/execution-risk factor worth watching given the firm's small size relative to award volume.

• Reinforces the Aegean/Eastern Mediterranean as a priority zone for EU

subsea-infrastructure resilience spending, consistent with the parallel Greece-Bulgaria EIB North-East Aegean interconnection loan (2025-12-17-greece-eib-ipto-north-east-aegean-interconnection-loan).

Open questions

• Whether EAN funds new physical protection hardware/monitoring sensors,

software-based supervision systems, or both — the official Annex line item gives only the acronym, coordinator and grant amount, not a detailed scope description; Wings' own summary ("protection and digital supervision") was the most specific public characterisation found.

• Exact list of project partners (if any beyond Wings as sole coordinator)

and the physical cable routes/landing points covered by EAN.