As North African energy links are redrawn, Italy becomes Europe’s southern gas hub
- Autores: Francis Ghiles
- Localización: Notes internacionals CIDOB, ISSN-e 2013-4428, Nº. 276, 2022, págs. 1-4
- Idioma: inglés
- Enlaces
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Resumen
The Russian invasion of Ukraine is accelerating a reshaping of the political and economic landscape of the central and western Mediterranean, above all regarding the energy sector and, specifically, gas supply.
In this context, Italy is reasserting its influence, especially in the central Mediterranean as it replaces its Russiansourced gas with greater amounts of Algeria, Egyptian and now Israeli gas.
Italy and Algeria came to an agreement on May 11th 2022 whereby the volume of gas shipped via the TransMed (Enrico Mattei) pipeline would be increased from 21 bcm to 30 bcm by the end of 2023. This pipeline, which carries Algerian gas to Italy via Tunisia, thus acquires greater strategic importance.
Moreover, Italy is looking beyond gas.
Stronger cooperation between Italy and Algeria should help stabilise Tunisia, not least because the first two countries see eye to eye on Libya. Tunisia faces an increasingly dire economic situation which Tunisian president Saied ignores at his political peril.
