Brussels, 07/05/2010 (Agence Europe) - Two meetings on energy in the Euro-Mediterranean region will be held in Valencia (Spain). At the initiative of the European Investment Bank (EIB), the first meeteing, on Monday 10 May, will be devoted to looking at what has been undertaken by the Bank, through FEMIP (the Facility for Euro-Mediterranean Investment and Partnership) and projects envisaged, especially within the Union for the Mediterranean (UfM). The second meeting, on 11 May, will be a ministerial meeting devoted to the “Solar Plan”, one of six selected from priority actions assigned to the UfM. The target is to achieve an additional 20 GW energy production, most of which may be exported to Europe.
Energy is a “vital” challenge, said Philippe de Fontaine Vive, EIB Vice-President. It is the duty of the Mediterranean to become an “attractive, competitive region that is integrated with the world economy”, he said. The EIB states that energy should be recognised as the “keystone of a long-lasting partnership for the Euro-Mediterranean region”. The EIB and its Euro-Mediterranean branch, the FEMIP, have already taken this challenge into account in their action towards the countries of the region. In coming decades, the countries to the south and east of the Mediterranean Basin will no doubt be faced with great pressure when it comes to energy and, by 2025, energy demand will increase in these countries four times more than energy demand in European countries. The Bank made this a top priority and a strategic course of action when the FEMIP was created end 2002.
In the field of renewable energies, the bank has undertaken a series of flagship projects, such as the Tillouguit hydropower plant and the Tangier wind farm in Morocco, the Gabal el-Zait wind farm in Egypt, and the Jordanian pipeline forming the Jordanian link of the Arab Gas Pipeline from Egypt to Turkey passing by Jordan and Syria. Such projects show the wonderful role of catalyst played by the FEMIP in the Euro-Mediterranean region with regard to energy, and is the premise for a unified gas market within the Middle East, the EIB states. In Morocco, a loan was granted in 2002 to the National Electricity Office to increase the capacity of electrical transit links with Spain and Algeria. The bank has also played a part in projects for the construction and upgrading of national energy infrastructure, such as the modernisation of electricity supply networks in the West Bank, the construction of an electrical generating plant in Tunisia (Ghannouch), and another plant in Syria (Deir Ali I and II).
The meeting on 11 May is specifically devoted to the Solar Plan project to take stock of its design and examine related aspects (technical, financial, etc.). According to Philippe de Fontaine Vive, funding theoretically available will not allow 10 GW production to be exceeded. The EIB has already made €5 billion available in liaison with two funding bodies (French AFD and German KFW), he said. The World Bank has reserved $750 million from its “Green Facility” programme for which it plans to mobilise a total of $5.5 billion by 2015 to promote the use of green energies throughout northern Africa, also aiming at the supply of local and European markets. Furthermore, a large-scale project is being studied and has aroused the interest of multilateral, public and private funding bodies - DESERTEC. Its aim is to use the largest energy resource technically accessible on this planet, available in the desert regions around the Equator. The DESERTEC concept aims to use deserts and technology to enhance supply security for energy and water, and help the environment. According to its vice-president, the EIB is already in contact with the designers of DESERTEC, that it sees as a project in the same vein as the Euro-Mediterranean Solar Plan. DESERTEC is a long term vision, he says. (F.B./transl.jl)