Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Konstantinos Fragogiannis attends “Rome Med Dialogues 2019” (Rome, 7 December 2019)

At Rome Med Dialogues 2019, on Saturday, 7 December, the Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs for Economic Diplomacy and Openness, Konstantinos Fragogiannis, described the government’s policy for energy security in the Eastern Mediterranean region and underscored the need for everyone to respect international law and international legality.

The Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs stressed Greece's role as a pillar of stability in the region and set out in detail the change created by the new government’s election and its investment-friendly programme. “We have open channels of communication with all the countries of the region and we are dealing with the issues that arise based on the energy security of our country and the countries that depend on the networks that pass through Greece,” he noted.

Joining Mr. Fragogiannis on the energy security panel were Tarek El Molla, Minister of Petroleum and Mineral Resources, Egypt; Toula Onoufriou, President, Cyprus Hydrocarbons Company, Cyprus; Sun Xiansheng, Secretary General, International Energy Forum (IEF); and Hossa Al Mutairi, Research Fellow, King Abdullah Petroleum Studies and Research Center (KAPSARC), Saudi Arabia.

Responding to a question from the CNBC correspondent regarding energy security in the Southeastern Mediterranean, the Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs stated: “I am optimistic about the future of energy security in the Eastern Mediterranean. All of the countries in the region share a responsibility to our peoples, to provide for energy sufficiency, and to the planet, to develop renewable energy and green energy projects. We also share a responsibility to offer energy resources and security to countries that do not have access to such deposits. But I want to underscore that the feasibility of this depends on rules regarding respect for international law. I am here with our friends, allies and partners to commit to agreements based on international law for promoting a framework that guarantees energy security in the region.”

Referring to Greece’s priorities in the energy sector, Mr. Fragogiannis noted: “Our intention is to be able to give the Greek people the potential to enjoy energy assets, whether these come from our traditional suppliers or from Azerbaijan via the TAP, which is nearly completed, or from Mediterranean deposits via the East Med pipeline, which is a project we are interested in expanding, or from LNG, which we are currently purchasing from Qatar, Algeria and the United Arab Emirates.”

Mr. Fragogiannis also stressed Greece’s prospects of becoming an energy hub for Europe through the development of energy transport pipelines, in combination with the ports and Greek shipping that currently transport LNG. The Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs for Economic Diplomacy and Openness also described the solar thermal power station that includes construction of a central concentrated solar power (CSP) tower using molten salt storage technology, which the Greek government has licensed, underscoring the country’s strategic choice to seek energy resources in high-tech green energy projects that adopt innovation through renewable energy sources that do not burden the environment and are a diversification from current choices.