GreenMed reaches Jordan: a new Mediterranean–IMEC corridor takes shape
Sparkle's MoU with NaiTel and iLevant to extend the GreenMed system into Jordan ties an EU-funded subsea corridor directly into the India–Middle East–Europe Economic Corridor. For SEE carriers, this changes how Europe–Asia traffic will be priced and routed by the late 2020s.
CEO, Sofia Connect EAD · Honorary Consul of Georgia in Bulgaria
In late May 2026, Telecom Italia Sparkle announced a Memorandum of Understanding with NaiTel — the telecom arm of Aqaba Digital Hub — and iLevant Ltd to extend the GreenMed submarine cable system into the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. The Italian carrier framed the deal as the next step toward "a new digital connectivity corridor linking Europe and Asia."
That phrasing is unusually pointed for a subsea MoU. It signals a shift that matters for every carrier operating between Italy and the Black Sea — Sofia Connect included.
What GreenMed actually is
GreenMed, first announced by Sparkle in January 2024, is a new submarine system connecting Italy to Croatia, Montenegro, Albania, Greece (including Crete) and Türkiye. It is partly co-funded by the European Commission under the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) Digital programme, which has put around €1.65 billion behind digital infrastructure for the 2021–2027 budget cycle.
The system is designed as a low-latency, route-diverse alternative to the older Mediterranean cables that converge on Egypt — the well-known choke point that has caused multi-hour outages across Europe–Asia traffic in 2022, 2023 and again in 2024.
Why Jordan changes the calculus
Aqaba Digital Hub is already a landing point for BlueMed and the Blue & Raman systems. Adding GreenMed makes Jordan a triple-landing site for European-funded subsea corridors that bypass the Suez bottleneck via terrestrial fibre across the Hashemite Kingdom.
That same overland route is the foundation of the India–Middle East–Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC) declared at the 2023 G20. IMEC is, in practical telecom terms, a play to give India–Europe data traffic a path that does not depend on Egypt or on Russian sovereign territory.
For a SEE wholesale carrier, three implications follow:
- Italy will consolidate as the European IMEC head-end. Sparkle's home market is the natural Atlantic-cable / Mediterranean-cable converge point. Marseille will keep its weight for African landings, but Italy is moving up the stack for Asia-bound capacity.
- The Balkans become transit, not periphery. GreenMed touches Croatia, Montenegro, Albania and Greece on its Adriatic leg. Terrestrial routes from Sofia through Skopje and Tirana, or from Sofia through Bucharest into Trieste, will see new demand for IRU dark fibre into 2027–2028.
- Egypt-bypass premium pricing is here to stay. Customers who learned the hard way after the 2024 Red Sea anchor incidents now budget for diverse paths. CFOs sign IRUs that include "no Suez" clauses. That is no longer a hypothetical SLA conversation.
A regulatory tailwind that is not optional
The CEF Digital programme's 2026 work programme — the one currently in mid-call — explicitly prioritises subsea cable repair capacity, gateway diversification and 5G corridor connectivity. The European Commission published a dedicated call this May, CEF-DIG-2026-Cable-Repair-Capacities-Pilot, with submission deadlines through the autumn.
Brussels is, in effect, paying carriers to fix what the Red Sea events exposed. Sofia Connect's CEF-DIG-2026-GATEWAYS submission with CETIN Bulgaria EAD sits squarely in this thesis — terrestrial gateway redundancy is a directly fundable activity, not a "nice to have."
What we are watching
- First commercial services on GreenMed. Sparkle has targeted ready-for-service in 2027. The first lit wavelengths between Genoa and Tel Aviv, and between Genoa and Heraklion, will set the spot price for the rest of the system.
- A second IMEC-aligned subsea project to confirm the trend. One MoU is a deal; two is a pattern. Watch Saudi Telecom and Etisalat for the next move.
- Türkiye's branching unit landing. Sparkle has not yet named a Turkish co-investor for the GreenMed Türkiye leg. A choice among Türksat, Türk Telekom International and a third party will materially shape Black Sea–Mediterranean transit pricing.
The Mediterranean–IMEC corridor is not a single cable. It is a re-architected European trans-Asia route in which subsea, terrestrial fibre, regulatory funding and IRU pricing all move together. The carriers that win the second half of this decade are the ones that read the four signals as one map — not four.
Sources: Sparkle / NaiTel / iLevant MoU coverage, Submarine Telecoms Forum; Submarine Networks World system update; CEF-DIG-2026 Cable Repair Capacities Pilot call, European Commission; Wire Association coverage of the GreenMed extension.