Egypt, Greece, and Cyprus signed on Tuesday a trilateral agreement on power linkage, Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi said during a joint press conference after a summit gathering the leaders of the three countries in Athens.
The ninth trilateral summit, focusing on energy and boosting trilateral cooperation, is part of a cooperation mechanism launched in 2014 between the three countries.
Egypt on Saturday signed an accord with Cyprus on linkage between the two countries’ electricity transmission networks. Two days earlier, Egypt also signed with Greece an agreement on an undersea cable that will transmit power from North Africa to Europe.
“This is an introductory step that brings us closer to the common goal that our three countries aspire to, which is connecting electricity in the future with the rest of the European continent,” El-Sisi said during the presser with Cypriot President Nicos Anastasiades and Greece’s Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis.
El-Sisi also called for similar progress regarding the endeavors to establish an offshore pipeline from the Aphrodite gas field in Cyprus to the two Egyptian gas liquifying plants in Damietta and Idku in northern Egypt.
The president said this step paves the way for dispatching liquified gas to Egypt and Greece then to many countries in the Eastern Mediterranean and perhaps to Western Balkans and Central European countries.
“This is consistent with the great ambitions that were born with the establishment of the East Mediterranean Gas Forum,” El-Sisi said.
Egypt, Cyprus, and Greece are part of the EastMed Gas Forum (EMGF), a Cairo-based international organization that aims to establish a regional gas market in the eastern Mediterranean and enhance trade relations among the member states.
Source: Al-Ahram Online
