The energy agreement between Egypt and Cyprus will shake Erdogan
Egypt and Cyprus want to connect their electricity grids through a submarine cable. Turkey is not happy: that's why
Egypt and Cyprus have signed an agreement to connect their power grids through a submarine cable.
THE DECLARATIONS
Cypriot Energy Minister Natasa Pilides said the memorandum of understanding signed with her Egyptian counterpart Mohamed Shaker El-Markabi could help the two countries in their path of energy transition and climate impact reduction. .
Among the "tangible benefits" brought by the interconnection, Pilides listed the strengthening of the electricity grids, the integration of renewable sources in the two mixes, the greater security of energy supplies and the possibility of "becoming energy exporters".
WHAT THE AGREEMENT PROVIDES FOR
The agreement aims to speed up authorization times, feasibility studies and the construction phase, as well as promoting greater coordination between the energy regulatory authorities and the electricity system operators of the two countries.
THE LINKS BETWEEN EGYPT AND CYPRUS
In recent years, after the discovery of important natural gas fields in the eastern Mediterranean Sea , Egypt and Cyprus have begun to strengthen their economic and political relations. In addition to the memorandum on the interconnection of electricity grids, Cairo and Nicosia are working on a project to send the extracted gas into Cypriot and Israeli waters to Egypt, where it will be liquefied, loaded onto tankers and exported to Europe and Asia.
In recent months, Cyprus had already signed an agreement to speed up the connection works between its electricity grid and those of Israel and Greece through a 2000 megawatt submarine cable. The first part of the project is expected to go live in 2025.
BECAUSE TURKEY IS NOT HAPPY
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's Turkey does not look favorably on all these energy-maritime deals in the eastern Mediterranean. Ankara has the ambition to become a regional energy hub, or rather an "intermediary" in gas flows between the Middle East and Europe. To achieve this, it signed an agreement on the redefinition of exclusive economic zones with Libya, so as to be able to assert its sovereignty over strategic sea areas. Furthermore, Turkey does not want to be excluded from the exploitation of hydrocarbons in the waters of the Mediterranean: an issue that is linked to the territorial disputes with Cyprus, Greece and Egypt.
Political relations between Turkey and Cyprus are complicated by the support offered by Ankara to the government of Northern Cyprus, the northern portion of the island of Cyprus inhabited mainly by Turkish Cypriots and proclaimed independent. Relations between Turkey and Egypt, on the other hand, were damaged by the coup that removed Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi (a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, a political organization supported by the Turkish government) and brought General al-Sisi to power.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/energia/egitto-cipro-rete-elettrica-turchia/ on Mon, 18 Oct 2021 12:52:28 +0000.