A New Eastern Mediterranean Strategic Matrix Is Evolving

Commentary
Major, separate transformations are emerging in the domestic political landscapes of Egypt, Israel, Lebanon, Syria, Turkey, Cyprus, and Greece.
These, coupled with transformations in “great power” influences in the broader Eastern Mediterranean region, will shape the European energy markets, and the relative influence of the United States, Russia, the People’s Republic of China, and Iran.
Severe dislocations in the political framework of the European Union—and particularly France and Italy, as Mediterranean powers, but also Germany—mean that efforts to shape a cohesive Mediterranean Basin trading system, so plausible less than a decade ago, must now be looked at anew. But within that framework, the potential for greater energy (mainly gas) deliveries from the Mediterranean to the EU may well outweigh deliveries of Central Asian oil and gas. But this only matters if the EU wakes up to the reality that it cannot survive on so-called “renewable” energy alone….