“In the Mediterranean region, in Europe, as well as with the attention of the international Community focused on us with regard to the major issue of energy, which is interwoven with progress on numerous levels for survival, with the progress of the societies and countries of our entire planet, there are also those who create tension.
With a Navtex from the Turkish station in Antalaya that the ship “Barbaros” was going to carry out seismic research on a segment of the Greek continental shelf, Turkey is again being provocative and displaying what I noted earlier, that it continues actions that cause tension in the Aegean and the Eastern Mediterranean.
The representative of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs reminded in this regard that permission is required from the competent Greek Authorities in order to carry out similar research on the Greek continental shelf. In addition, the responsibility of issuing the relevant Navtex falls within the competence of the Greek authorities. In this specific case, yet again, the procedures stipulated by international law and international regulations were not followed by the Turkish side, a fact that the Greek side emphasises in a strong demarche made against the Turkish authorities, in accordance with established practice.”
This is what Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Terens Quick stressed while speaking at the OSCE annual conference of Ministers of Foreign Affairs with the Mediterranean partners, which was held in Malaga and whose main topic was Energy.
In his speech, the Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, inter alia, stressed the following:
- In the current European environment, security, economic growth, and cooperation equate to energy security, and this becomes even more evident for the Mediterranean region, as well as for the national security of all of its countries. The geopolitical role of the countries is often linked to energy issues, in most cases.
- Greece believes that no country should solely depend on only one Energy supplier, through only one route. The less we depend on only one supplier, we become partners with more suppliers and in more pipelines, and achieve more competitive conditions.
- In its energy policy, Greece aims towards 3 pillars: cooperation - connectivity - complementarity. Moreover, we consider the Energy derived from renewable energy sources and LNG very significant and environmentally friendly.
- We work with complete consistency to meet the standards of the European Union so that 27% of Energy is derived from renewable sources by 2030. We are already making great strides in exploiting solar and wind energy, with an outstanding example being the island of Tilos, which is Greece's first “green” island.
- My country is proceeding strongly with bilateral, trilateral, and quadrilateral cooperation schemes with countries in the region, such as Cyprus, Israel, Egypt, Jordan, Bulgaria, Romania, Croatia, and Serbia.
Finally, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Terens Quick referred to infrastructure projects related to Energy, referring to examples such as TAP, IAP, IGB, FSRU (LNG in Alexandroupoli and Revithoussa), East-Med, Euro-Asia, and Euro-Africa interconnector.
October 26, 2018