EastMed: that is, just as the US pushed Italy into the Russian energy move
The same Biden who now offers American liquefied gas, which he does not have, to Europe in place of the Russian one has boycotted a solution which, if applied, could soon have decreased European dependence on Russian gas.
The EastMed pipeline – a € 6 billion project that was to send gas from fields off the coast of Israel and Egypt through a 1,250-kilometer pipeline through Cyprus and Greece to European markets was canceled in January 2022, not years ago, precisely because of the opposition of the Biden administration.
from wikipedia
The problem was that the project would have excluded Turkey, a country that now controls the entire eastern Mediterranean, and then Europe in January was not interested in receiving more gas, since it already had the Russian one and in any case it would have become, miraculously, "Green".
In a document sent to Greece in early January, Washington cited the project's lack of a “Green” basis, political reasons, and the failure to study environmental feasibility as reasons for its withdrawal.
"We remain committed to physically connecting EastMed energy to Europe," a State Department spokesperson said, adding that the United States is shifting its focus to electrical interconnections that could support both gas and energy sources. renewable, such as an electricity connection between Greece and Egypt.
The project had been supported by the Trump administration and former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, but changes in political leadership seemed to have ditched it. After all, why help two Su Europa companies like the Greek DEPA and the Italian Edison? They didn't have saints in heaven.
Leviathan, the large natural gas basin between Israel and Cyprus is capable of supplying up to 21 billion cubic meters of gas per year. Not enough to replace Russia's 15 billion, but still an interesting contribution which, among other things, could have come from a stable country through stable countries. Not to mention the possibility of exploiting other extraction fields in the area. However, the project was blocked by the US. Now it seems to start again , also for the talks between Israel and Turkey, but on the one hand it will put us even more in the hands of Ankara, which is replacing Moscow in the control of European energy supplies (remember the TAP), and it will take longer long of realization.
The scarcity of European gas is the result of European and American errors, as much as of the Russian will …
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The EastMed article: that is how the US pushed Italy into the Russian energy move comes from ScenariEconomici.it .
This is a machine translation of a post published on Scenari Economici at the URL https://scenarieconomici.it/eastmed-cioe-come-pure-gli-usa-hanno-spinto-litalia-nella-mossa-energetica-russa/ on Wed, 30 Mar 2022 08:00:15 +0000.