Greece, Cyprus and Israel have signed this Thursday, in Athens, the agreement for the ambitious project of construction of the pipeline, EastMed, which aims to supply the European Union with natural gas from the eastern Mediterranean and create a new corridor that will facilitate energy independence for the continent. It is an initiative geostrategic and economically ambitious, which in turn threatens the aspirations of energy of Turkey in the area, which becomes a source of new conflicts in a region historically disputed.
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The agreement has been signed by the israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu; his Greek counterpart, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, the cypriot president, Nicos Anastasiades, and the holders of Power of the three countries.
Netanyahu stressed, in a press release prior to the meeting, that “the alliance of the three countries” is of “enormous importance to the energy future of Israel and to the stability in the region”. For its part, the Greek minister of Environment and Energy, Kostis Hatzidakis stated, in the channel tv Greek Antenna, that the pipeline is “a project of peace and cooperation in the eastern Mediterranean despite the threats of turks”.
The oil and gas reserves off the coast of Cyprus have caused tension with Ankara. The Government of Recep Tayyip Erdogan has questioned the right of Cyprus -of which the northern one third was occupied in 1974 by Turkey, causing the division of the island – to conduct any type of exploration and exploitation of energy resources, and has made a show of strength in the last few months by sending drilling ships to the Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) of cyprus despite the warnings of Washington and the EU.
Ankara, in addition, has signed with Libya an agreement maritime that aims jugular —if it enters into force— the path of the pipeline.
With a length of 1.872 km pipeline, EastMed, which for the most part will be underwater, will allow the transport of between 9,000 and 11,000 million cubic metres of natural gas a year from the marine reserves compared to Cyprus and Israel to Greece, as well as Italy and other countries of the southeastern Europe through pipelines Poseidon and IGB. The project envisages an investment of 8,000 million dollars (about 7.163 billion euros).
the origin of The project dates back to 2013, when the society Greek public natural gas Depa included in the list of “works of common interest” of the European Union, which benefit from european funds to cover a part of the preparatory work. The current cost of the pipeline to Italy is estimated at 6,000 million euros (6,700 million dollars).
