EuroAsia Interconnector and parallel procedures

By: N. Lygeros PHD

Translated from the Greek by Vicky Baklessi
Submitted by: Stelios Veisakis MSc in Oil&Gas Technology.
With the developments which proceed in the Eastern Mediterranean, the EuroAsia Interconnector overcomes the bureaucratic obstacles and passes onto the practical phase of parallel procedures with the contacts being made in Attica, in Crete, in Cyprus and in Israel. All the points move in different speeds depending on the dynamic of the states so that there is a coordination of moves for the implementation of the project which will begin in 2017. The first phases will concern the interconnection Attica-Crete and the interconnection Cyprus-Israel. The latter is at a more advanced stage but we see also for the first that one by one the obstacles are being overcome. Because everyone sees, and in fact at various levels, the importance of the project not only for the three countries but for the entire European Union. For this reason the EuroAsia Interconnector is the first on the Projects of Common Interests list of the European Committee. This means practically that with this the energy isolation of Crete and Cyprus will end through an interconnection which constitutes a strategic link for all participants in the project. The fact that we are talking about environmental studies which have to be submitted within the year, it is a very good sign for the practical course of the project. And since the study of the cable’s course in the sea, in depths greater than 100m, we now move from the land up to these to put forward the entire course and the places to which it will pass with accuracy. So we enter also in the action of the local element which shows the evolution of the whole issue.