The European Union’s (EU) Commissioner Olivér Várhelyi’s has stated that the trilateral memorandum of understanding (MoU) between Egypt, the EU, and Israel has succeeded in securing significant amounts of liquified natural gas (LNG) to Europe.
This came amid Egypt-EU talks focusing on energy among other essential topics.
Várhelyi’s’ comments came during a joint press conference following the 10th EU-Egypt Association Council, which was co-chaired by Sameh Shoukry, Egyptian Minister of Foreign Affairs; and Josep Borrell, High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy.
The MoU “has helped Europe to diversify away from Russian gas and to find new reliable partners in terms of gas supply. So, I think this is another success that we have only started working on, and this is already bringing direct benefits also to European citizens,” Várhelyi’s noted.
“We have also discussed the future of our cooperation in the energy field, which is, I would say maybe of the biggest potential for the both of us, because Egypt can become not only a reliable supplier of gas, but also a reliable source of renewable energy. And for that reason, we highlighted on our side that the importance of the decision we took to give the status of project of mutual interest for the GREGY project, basically the deep-sea electricity cable between Greece and Egypt,” Várhelyi’s said.
Várhelyi’s explained that this status of project should offer a business opportunity and create “more interesting financing opportunities for this project. We consider this project to be the first, if you will, a blueprint, for further projects like this with Egypt, but also in the broader region. We are engaging with Tunisia in investments of this kind, with Georgia, but the potential Egypt carries in terms of possible supplier of green electricity is difficult to match. So, we are very interested in not only implementing this project but working on new similar ones.”
The 10th EU-Egypt Association Council took place in Brussels on January 23rd.
