“Egypt plans to supply Europe with” clean “electricity through a submarine cable, which will pass through Cyprus and Greece. “But Turkey stands in the way of an ambitious project to transfer electricity from North Africa to the European continent.” Handelsblatt entitled “Conflict in the Eastern Mediterranean causes submarine cable”.
The financial newspaper observes: “No one expects that Greece and Cyprus will make an effort to extract Ankara’s yes in the laying of the sea cable. Because this would mean the recognition of the Turkish-Libyan pact, which, according to the EU, violates international law.
The ambitious power cable project between Egypt, Cyprus and Greece is not the only one that could provoke a new dispute with Turkey. There are plans for another cable between Israel and Cyprus called Euroasia Interconnector, which will meet in Cyprus the Euroafrica Interconnector and will continue until Crete. A third energy project involving Turkish interests is the planned Eastmed pipeline, which will supply natural gas from Cypriot and Israeli fields to the EU via Greece. This would cast doubt on Turkey’s role as an important energy hub between Asia and Europe.
How will Greece deal with any Turkish objections?
Ambitious ventures for EEZs and mineral wealth could spark new conflicts between Turkey and Greece or Cyprus. For example, if Turkey was trying to prevent the sinking of the submarine cable by sending warships, as happened in the summer of 2020 at the height of the controversy over the EEZs and gas fields in the eastern Mediterranean.
This time, however, the conflict would have an additional geopolitical dimension. One of the partners in the project is IPTO, 24% of which is owned by the Chinese energy giant State Grid. The partial privatization of the electricity grid was one of the conditions that Greece had to meet in exchange for support during the debt crisis.
When asked by Handelsblatt, the people in charge of the Nicosia-based Euroasia / Euroafrica Interconnector program said that there were agreements between the governments of the countries involved on the submarine cable routes. The Greek Ministry of Energy did not answer how any Turkish objections to the project will be dealt with “.
DW / Stefanos Georgakopoulos
.
