المركزية- على وقع التحديات الأمنية وتهديداتها، يجهد رئيس الجمهورية العماد جوزاف عون لتحريك الملفات الاقتصادية الاستراتيجية التي من شأنها أن تُنهض البلاد من كبوتها التي أوصلتها إلى حدّ الانهيار… فهو لا يوفّر فرصة وجوده في الخارج، حيث يكثّف من رحلاته الرسمية للهدف المنوَّه عنه، إلا ويتطرّق مع نظرائه العرب والأجانب إلى إمكانات التعاون في سبيل تعزيز العلاقات الاقتصادية والمشاريع الاستثمارية مع لبنان.

وليست مفاوضاته المثمرة التي أجراها مع نظيره القبرصي نيكوس خريستودوليدس خلال زيارته الرسمية الأخيرة إلى نيقوسيا، سوى الدليل الثابت على مساعيه الحثيثة إلى وصل لبنان بالخارج بعد انقطاعٍ دام سنوات لأسباب باتت معروفة علّها “تُذكَر ولا تُعاد”! ومن ثمار تلك الزيارة، الإعلان عن تحقيق تقدّم كبير في الجانب التقني من ملف استكمال المفاوضات حول ترسيم الحدود البحرية بين البلدين، والعمل على تحويل النتائج التقنية إلى صيغة سياسية قابلة للتنفيذ، على غرار اتفاق ترسيم الحدود مع إسرائيل الذي أُبرم في تشرين الأول عام 2022 بوساطة أميركية…

لكن هذه الخطوة لم تكن الوحيدة التي خرج بها الرئيسان اللبناني والقبرصي من لقاء نيقوسيا، بل أحدث طرح الرئيس خريستودوليدس مَدّ كابل بحري من الجزيرة لتزويد لبنان بالكهرباء، خرقاً في ملف الطاقة اللبنانية النازف، على رغم أن الطرح يتطلب دراسة جدوى مفصّلة تسبق الحماسة على المضي فيه…

إذ في انتظار وصول وفد تقني قبرصي إلى بيروت في الأيام المقبلة لاستكمال المفاوضات حول ترسيم الحدود البحرية بين البلدين، يستعدّ وزير الطاقة والمياه جو الصدّي لزيارة قبرص ولقاء المسؤولين الرسميين والمعنيين بقطاع الطاقة، بهدف متابعة الطرح القبرصي تزويد لبنان بالكهرباء، والاطلاع على حيثيات المشروع وتفاصيله كافة.

بارودي يرحّب.. ويسأل

في غضون ذلك، يثني الخبير الدولي في شؤون الطاقة والعضو في “معهد شبكة القيادة عبر الأطلسي” في واشنطن رودي بارودي على طرح الرئيس القبرصي، ويشدد عبر “المركزية” على “وجوب الترحيب بأي مبادرة من هذا القبيل”، معتبراً أنها “خطوة جيّدة في مسار تأمين الكهرباء للبنانيين وبالتالي توفير الحلول الضرورية لأزمة القطاع المستفحلة طوال عقود”.

ويُشير في السياق، إلى أن “مسافة 160.9 كيلومتراً تفصل بين لبنان وقبرص بما يدل على القرب الجغرافي بين البلدين، وهو عامل مساعد في تنفيذ المشروع. والعامل الآخر الذي يشجّع على البحث في إمكانية الإفادة من هذه المبادرة، أن قبرص لديها محطة إنتاج كهرباء تقع بين لارنكا وليماسول، كما لديها محطة إنتاج Vassilikoss وهي الأكبر على الإطلاق تقع بين ليماسول وبافوس. والجدير ذكره في هذا الإطار، أن الإنتاج الكهربائي لقبرص يعادل 5 آلاف و400 ميغاواط تقريباً، ومن غير المعلوم حتى الآن الكمية التي ستزوّد بها لبنان من مجموع هذا الإنتاج”.

ويخلص إلى التأكيد على “وجوب الترحيب بالمبادرة القبرصية مهما كانت كمية الكهرباء التي ستزوّدنا بها… وإذ نهنّئ الحكومة اللبنانية على مشروع استجرار الطاقة من قبرص، عليها التنبّه إلى كلفة الاستجرار الباهظة لأن قبرص تبيع الكيلوواط الواحد بمبلغ يتراوح بين 35 و40 سنتاً… وهذا رقم يجب التوقف عنده في دراسة الجدوى، مع الإقرار بأهمية المشروع وانعكاساته الإيجابية على لبنان بما يساعد في حل أزمة قطاع الكهرباء المُزمنة”.

“لذلك من الأهمية بمكان إعداد دراسة جدوى اقتصادية، مع التشديد على ضرورة تشجيع أي مبادرة تساعد الشعب اللبناني في تأمين ساعات تغذية إضافية من الكهرباء، ونحن نشدّ على يد الحكومة للمضي في هذه المبادرة… ولنترقب من أي محطة ستزوّدنا قبرص الكهرباء وبأي كمية…وكلفة” يختم بارودي.

 وفي الصورة أدناه محطة Vassilikoss للطاقة في قبرص 

Most of the world is watching and waiting, hoping and/or praying that a hastily arranged ceasefire between Israel and Iran will hold. If it does, there will be sighs of relief virtually everywhere; if it does not, the State of Qatar should still be considered for the Nobel Peace Prize.

Yes, you read that correctly: even if the ceasefire that it helped to secure falls apart, Qatar should be considered for what many regard as the most prestigious prize on Earth.

I believe this because peace is more important than any other cause on Earth, and pound-for-pound, no country does more than Qatar to promote peace. Peace is more than a photo opportunity, more than a process that often allows belligerents to let their guns fall silent, more even than the gratitude of those whose lives and livelihoods are spared. It also serves other useful purposes, too, including as a commodity that promotes stronger growth and better socioeconomic development, and frees up resources for investment in education, healthcare, and transport infrastructure. Accordingly, achieving peace means more than simply not being at war: it means having the chance to better one’s own situation by leaps and bounds. By extension, anyone who provides such a chance to anyone else deserves deep admiration.

By this measurement alone, Qatar’s case for a Nobel is rock-solid – and has been for years, long before the world’s most powerful county asked it to obtain Iranian consent to a ceasefire. A quick glance at Qatar’s track record reveals a foreign policy focused almost entirely on the peaceful resolution of differences. Over the past quarter-century, Qatari diplomacy has helped to resolve or mitigate multiple crises, disputes, and conflicts in too many places to count, including Afghanistan, Darfur, Gaza, Eritrea, Iraq, Lebanon, Russia and Ukraine, Sudan and South Sudan, and Yemen. These feats have included the winding down of one all-out civil war and the prevention of another, the brokering of several exchanges involving thousands of prisoners/hostages, the securing of temporary cease-fires, the resolution of dangerous constitutional deadlocks, and – most importantly – the kindling of hope in the hearts of millions.

Not surprisingly, Qatar’s diplomatic corps is almost constantly and relentlessly engaged in one form or another of peacemaking. It does not always succeed, but its investments – both political and financial – in this mission pay dividends in other ways, too. Repeated successes are their own reward, but even “failure” both raises Qatar’s profile and reaffirms its commitment to dialogue and peace. In addition, both the leadership and the professional diplomats learn important lessons from each and every engagement, making Qatari intervention increasingly effective over time. Just as importantly, this increasing effectiveness contributes to Qatar’s growing reputation as an honest and capable broker, and that perception gives it still more influence, leverage, and flexibility going forward.

There are critics, of course. Many American officials, for instance, have criticised Doha for maintaining friendly relations with entities such as Hamas, the Taliban, and, indeed, the Islamic Republic of Iran. But when Washington and Paris wanted to end the presidential vacuum in Beirut, they turned to Qatar and other brotherly nations, which then helped to gain the acquiescence of Iran and Hezbollah. When Washington wanted to negotiate the release of Israeli soldiers and civilians held in Gaza, it was Qatar that made it happen. When the first Trump administration wanted a negotiated exit from Afghanistan, it was Doha that made the contacts and hosted the talks. And when the current Trump administration decided it was time for Israel and Iran to end hostilities, it was the Qataris who delivered the Iranians – and this despite the fact that Iran had just retaliated against US air strikes by lobbing missiles at a US air base inside Qatar!

In effect, the peninsula is now a platform for peace promotion, and not by accident. As impressive as they are, even Qatar’s obvious enthusiasm and evident aptitude for dialogue and diplomacy cannot account for the unprecedentedly large role it has come to play on the world stage.

Instead, today’s Qatar is the product of a bold strategy rooted in both purpose and principle. Led by His Highness the Amir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani, the country’s entire leadership views respect for international law and the maintenance of international peace and stability as existential objectives for Qatar and its population.

The Amir inherited some of this strategy from his father, but he has expansively built on it, adding both breadth of vision and depth of commitment. Even – and perhaps especially – when this approach has carried dire risks, His Highness the Amir has refused to waver, and his steadfast pursuit of fraternal relations among nation-states has continued. That resolve has been noted by state and non-state actors alike, and some former antagonists have even come to embrace and even emulate much of the Qatari approach.

That’s why Qatar deserves the Nobel Peace Prize. Not because it helped end a war between Iran and Israel, but because no other country is so singularly dedicated to peace. It’s the ideas behind its actions that make them special: that a country should not only refrain from seeking out conflict, should not only keenly avoid conflict unless necessary, but should also actively seek to prevent, shorten, and/or mitigate conflict among other countries as well.

What could be more noble – and therefore more Nobel-worthy – than that?

• Roudi Baroudi is an energy and policy expert with more than four decades of experience in both the private and public sectors. The author of several books, he currently serves as CEO of Energy and Environment Holding, an independent consultancy based in Doha.

The long-feared war between Israel and Iran is now fully under way, and the repercussions threaten to include significant disruptions – not just for the two belligerents, but also for economies, peoples, and governments around the world.

To understand how and why an armed conflict between two regional powers could have such a widespread impact, start by considering the following:

1. Iran’s reserves of crude oil and natural gas are, respectively, the second- and third-largest in the world;

2. While Israel has posited Iran’s alleged nuclear activities as its reason for going to war, its strikes have also focused on Iran’s oil and gas infrastructure;

3. At the time of this writing, five of Iran’s nine major oil refineries had been hit and knocked out of service, along with storage depots and other facilities;

4. Israeli forces also started a huge fire at the South Pars gas field, which Iran shares with Qatar – and which holds almost as much gas as all of the other known gas fields on Earth.

5. For good measure, Iranian strikes against the Israeli refinery complex at Haifa have led to the shutdown of several offshore platforms, further crimping regional hydrocarbon output;

Now consider that it gets worse. The destruction or shutdown of Iran’s ability to extract, process, distribute, and export hydrocarbons would cause tremendous problems at home, and put upward pressure on prices everywhere, although the global impact would likely be manageable. The situation would be far more disruptive if Israeli attacks hit Bandar Abbas area. That could cause prices for gas – and other forms of energy – to soar on world markets.

And yet even this is not the greatest peril threatened by this war. That desultory honour goes to the possibility that traffic could be disrupted in the Strait of Hormuz, the relatively narrow channel that connects the Gulf to the open ocean. The passage is only 40 kilometres at its narrowest spot, wending for over 150 kilometres between Oman and the United Arab Emirates, to the west and south, and Iran’s Hormozgan Province to the east and north. Hormozgan is also home to the famous port city of Bandar Abbas, which hosts a giant oil and petrochemical complex that has already been struck at least once by Israeli forces.

What really matters for our purposes is that Hormuz also connects several other of the world’s most prolific oil and LNG producers – including Iraq, Kuwait, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia – to their overseas clients. As a result, every day, about a quarter of the world’s crude oil and LNG requirements exit the Gulf through Hormuz, making it the most strategically important chokepoint of our times. If this flow were halted or even significantly slowed, the consequences could be disastrous for much of the world. Although most of these exports are typically bound for markets in Asia, even a brief reduction in available oil and gas could send crude prices, currently a little more than $70 a barrel, shooting past $100 or even $120 in short order.

If such a supply crisis lasted any length of time, the global economy would enter uncharted territory. Not only would sky-high energy prices cause inflation to rise across the board, but fuel shortages could also be expected to cripple businesses of every size and sort. Transport and manufacturing, food processing and medical research, power generation, household heating and cooling, even the Internet itself: everything that depends on energy could slow to a trickle. A global recession would almost certainly ensue, and given the current trade environment, that might lead to another Great Depression.

So what might cause such an interruption? There are several possibilities, including the accidental sinking or crippling of a supertanker or two in just the right (i.e., wrong) place(s). Even if one or more accidents did not make Hormuz physically impassable, they could make insurance rates prohibitively expensive, causing many would-be off-loaders to decide against hazarding their ships amid the crossfire. Alternatively, Iran could decide to close the strait in order to punish the “international community” in general, for not doing enough to rein in the Israelis.

Whatever the rationale, the potential for global economic ruin – not to mention the ecological and public health risks posed by leaks of oil, nuclear materials, and/or other toxins into the environment – is simply not a risk that most intelligent people want to run. It therefore behooves those with the power to change the situation to do everything they can to end the conflict before its costs become more than a fragile world economy can bear.

Another is how to get Iran to behave itself, and that, too, shapes up as a difficult task. The Islamic Republic has spent most of the past half-century seeking to undermine US and Israeli influence over the region, and its substantial investments in proxy militias abroad and its own military at home may be skewing high-level decision-making. As the saying goes, when all you have is hammer, everything starts to look like a nail.

Despite these obstacles, it remains a fact that war is almost never preferable to negotiation. Iran and Israel agree on very little, their objectives are often in direct opposition to one another, and each views the other as a murderous and illegitimate state. Nonetheless, whether they realise it or not, both sides have a vested interest in ending the current conflict. Given the massive disparities in their respective strengths and weaknesses, this conflict could turn into a long-term bloodletting in which the value of anything achieved will be far outstripped by the cost in blood and treasure.

But who will get the two sides to so much as consider diplomacy when both of them are increasingly committed to confrontation? Although several world leaders have offered to act as mediators, the belligerents don’t trust very many of the same people. To my mind, this opens a door for Qatar, which has worked assiduously to maintain relations with all parties – and which already has a highly impressive record as a peacemaker – to step up in some capacity.

Whether it provides a venue for direct talks, a diplomatic backchannel for exchanging messages, or some other method, Doha has proved before that it can be a stable platform and a powerful advocate for peaceful negotiations. Let us hope it can do so again.

• Roudi Baroudi is a four-decade veteran of the oil and gas industry who currently serves as CEO of Energy and Environment Holding, an independent consultancy based in Doha.

Recent weeks have been multiple contacts among several countries including – Cyprus, Greece, Lebanon, and Syria – aimed at increasing cooperation among East Mediterranean countries.

This flurry of diplomatic activity provides the perfect backdrop as Notre-Dame University – Louaize is pleased to announce that it will host a book launch and signing on April 23rd, welcoming international energy expert Roudi Baroudi as he releases his latest work, “Settling Maritime Boundaries in the Eastern Mediterranean: Who Will Be Next? ”

The book outlines the need for countries in the region to resolve their maritime boundaries, the energy and other economic opportunities that doing so could open up, and the legal, scientific, and technical means of ensuring that delimitation is fair and equitable. The volume even carries exclusive, high-precision maps indicating with unprecedented accuracy where the negotiated or adjudicated sea borders of several East Med countries would be, as per United Nations rules.

The book emphasizes that settling these unresolved boundaries – including those between Lebanon and Cyprus, Lebanon and Syria, Greece and Turkey, Turkey and Syria, Syria and Cyprus, and Turkey and Cyprus – is a necessary first step for those seeking to develop offshore energy resources. The advent of energy security and possible lucrative exports could have a profound effect on several states, allowing them to make historic investments in schools, hospitals, and transport infrastructure, all while creating well-paying jobs and reducing poverty and inequality. Baroudi also highlights a series of cross-border benefits, including reducing potential irritants between neighbors, building trust, and opening up new avenues for cooperation.

As a 47-year veteran of the energy industry, Baroudi has a wealth of experience to share, and does so frequently as an author and speaker, promoting energy as a catalyst for dialogue and peace wherever and whenever he can. He will be on hand for the launch at NDU’s Pierre Abou Khater Auditorium beginning at 12:00 noon, answering questions and signing copies of the book for anyone who purchases one.

All sale proceeds will go toward Student Financial Aid at NDU.

ATHENS, July 7, 2024 Greece: Energy and Environment Minister Theodoros Skylakakis is on the right track with his approach to Greece’s energy transition plans, a noted regional expert says.

“He’s got the right perspective,” industry veteran and author Roudi Baroudi said after Skylakakis spoke at this week’s Athens Energy Summit. “He understands that although the responsibility to reduce carbon emissions is universal, the best policy decisions don’t come in ‘one-size-fits-all’.”

Baroudi, who has more than four decades in the field and currently serves as CEO of Doha independent consultancy Energy and Environment Holding, made his comments on the sidelines of the forum, where he also was a speaker.

In his remarks, Skylakakis expressed confidence that Greece’s increasing need to store electricity – as intermittent renewables generate a growing share of electricity – would drive sufficient investment in battery capacity, without the need for subsidies. Among other comments, he also stressed the need for European Union policymakers to account for the fact that member-states currently face the cost s of both limiting future climate change AND mitigating the impacts that are already under way.

“Every country is different in terms of how it can best fight climate change. Each one has its own set of natural resources, industrial capacity, financial wherewithal, and other variables. What works in one situation might be a terrible idea elsewhere. That’s crucial and Skylakakis gets it,” Baroudi said. “He also understands that an effective transition depends on carefully considered policies, policies that attract investment to where it can not only have the greatest impact today, but also maximizes the impact of tomorrow’s technologies and tomorrow’s partnerships.”

“What Skylakakis is saying and doing fits in nicely with many of the same ideas I spoke about,” Baroudi added. “When he talks about heavier reliance on wind farms, the added storage capacity is a foundation that will help derive a fuller return from each and every turbine. When he highlights the utility – pun intended – of power and gas interconnections with other countries and regions, these are the prerequisites for peace, the building blocks for cooperation and dialogue.”

In his own speech shortly after Skylakakis’, Baroudi told the audience at the capital’s Hotel Grande Bretagne that countries in the Eastern Mediterranean should work together to increase cleaner energy production and reduce regional tensions.

“Surely there is a method by which we can re-establish the same common ground enshrined in the wake of World Wars I and II, recall the same common interests and identify new ones, and work together to achieve common goals, just as the UN Charter implores us to,” he said.

Baroudi advises companies, governments, and international institutions on energy policy and is an award-winning advocate for efforts to promote peace through dialogue and diplomacy. He told his audience that with both climate change and mounting geopolitical tensions posing threats to people around the world, policymakers needed to think outside the usual boxes.

In this way, he argued, “we might develop the mutual trust which alone can create a safer, happier, and better world for our children and grandchildren.”

“Consider the possibilities if Greece, Türkiye, and Cyprus became de facto – or de jure – partners in a pipeline carrying East Med gas to consumers in Bulgaria, Romania, and Italy,” he said. “Imagine a future in which Israeli and Lebanese gas companies were similarly – but independently – reliant on the same Cypriot LNG plant for 10-20%, or even more, of their respective countries’ GDPs.”

He also envisioned bilateral cooperation scenarios between Greece and Turkey and Syria and Turkey, as well as a regional interconnection that would provide backup energy for multiple coastal states.

“Instead of accepting certain ideas as permanently impossible, we ought to be thinking ahead and laying the groundwork,” Baroudi said. “For Greece and Türkiye – as for other pairs of coastal states in the region – a good starting point would be to emulate the Maritime Boundary Agreement agreed to by Lebanon and Israel in 2022.”

Stressing the potential for cooperation to address both energy requirements and the stability required for stronger growth and development, Baroudi – whose books include a 2023 volume about the Lebanon-Israel deal and a forthcoming one urging other East Med countries to do the same – called on the EU to take up the challenge.

“Using dialogue and diplomacy to expand energy cooperation would benefit not just the countries of the East Med but also the entire European Union and much of its surrounding ‘neighborhood’,” he told an audience of energy professionals and key government officials. “That level of promise more than merits the attention of Brussels, the allocation of support resources, and even the designation of a dedicated point-person tasked with facilitating the necessary contacts and negotiations.”

“This is how we need to be thinking if we want to get where we need to go,” Baroudi said. “Instead of allowing ourselves to be discouraged by the presence of obstacles, we need to be investigating new routes that go around them, strengthen the rule of law – especially human rights law – as a basis for the international system, and promote lasting peace among all nations. Only then can we declare victory over what the 18^th-century Scottish poet Robert Burns called ‘man’s inhumanity to man’.”

أشار أحد اهم الخبراء في مجال الطاقة رودي بارودي، في مؤتمر انعقد في أثينا، إلى أن “دول شرق البحر الأبيض المتوسط يجب أن تتعاون مع بعضها لزيادة إنتاج وتصدير الطاقة والتخفيف من التوترات الإقليمية”.

وقال بارودي امام المشاركين في المؤتمر: “يجب ان نضع في الاعتبار الاحتمالات الايجابية إذا أصبحت اليونان وتركيا وقبرص شركاء بحكم الواقع أو بحكم القانون في خط أنابيب ينقل غاز شرق المتوسط إلى المستهلكين في بلغاريا ورومانيا وإيطاليا، وان نتخيل مستقبلًا تعتمد فيه شركات الغاز الإسرائيلية واللبنانية ولكن بشكل مستقل على نفس مصنع الغاز الطبيعي المسال في قبرص”.

وأضاف بارودي “لنتصور اهمية وايجابية سيناريوهات التعاون الثنائي بين اليونان وتركيا من جهة وسوريا وتركيا من جهة ثانية إضافة إلى الترابط الإقليمي الذي سيوفر طاقة احتياطية لدول ساحلية متعددة”، لافتا إلى أنه “بدلاً من قبول أفكار معينة على أنها مستحيلة بشكل دائم، يجب أن نفكر في المستقبل ونضع الأساس لاعمال ايجابية مشتركة على ان تكون نقطة البداية الجيدة مماثلة لاتفاقية الحدود البحرية بين لبنان وإسرائيل في عام 2022”.

وشدد بارودي أمام حشد من المتخصصين في مجال الطاقة ومسؤولين حكوميين على أن “استخدام الحوار والدبلوماسية لتوسيع التعاون في مجال الطاقة لن يفيد فقط دول شرق البحر المتوسط ولكن أيضًا جميع دول الاتحاد الأوروبي والكثير من” الجوار “المحيط به وان هذا الاستحقاق المهم يستحق أكثر من اهتمام بروكسل، لا بل يستحق تخصيص موارد الدعم،وتعيين موفد مكلف بتسهيل الاتصالات والمفاوضات اللازمة”.

وختم بارودي بالقول: “هذه هي الطريقة الفضلى التي نحتاجها للتفكير إذا أردنا الوصول إلى حيث يجب ان نكون بدلاً من السماح لأنفسنا بالإحباط بسبب وجود عقبات،فنحن نحتاج إلى التفتيش عن طرق جديدة وحديثة تلتف على الافكار والمواقف القديمة، وتعزيز سيادة القانون وخاصة قانون حقوق الإنسان كأساس للنظام الدولي، وتعزيز السلام الدائم بين جميع الدول،عندها فقط يمكننا إعلان النصر على ما أسماه الشاعر الاسكتلندي روبرت بيرنز في القرن الثامن عشر: وحشية الإنسان للإنسان”.

Political 04.06.24
Interview by ALEXIA TASOULI
DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENT
POLITICAL.GR NEWSPAPER

Athens, Friday 31^st of May 2024: Qatar’s Emir Sheikh Tamim Bin Hamad AlThani paid official visits to Cyprus and Greece this week, meeting with senior officials from both countries as part of efforts to expand cooperation. International energy expert Roudi Baroudi, CEO of Dohabased independent consultancy Energy and Environment Holding, sat down to answer a few questions about the outcome and significance of the emir’s mission.

Question: Overall, how successful were HH the emir’s visits to Greece and Cyprus?

Answer: Both visits appear to have been very fruitful. HH the emir and his delegation held constructive talks with their counterparts in both countries, and all sides came away with clearer understandings of where the already strong relationships should go next, and how they can get there. Several important first steps were taken toward identifying likely areas for further cooperation, and now both sides have the information they need to come up with proposals for the next steps on several fronts.

Q: From your perspective, what are the main takeaways from HH the emir’s trip?

A: There are several elements at play here, multiple processes unfolding according to their own timelines, but all interrelated in some ways. The first thing to consider is that both visits constitute reaffirmations of Qatar’s traditional diplomatic strategy, much of which revolves around having stable and friendly relations with as many counterparts as possible. That might sound a little basic, but it’s really not: many governments “pick sides” in various international disputes, which often amounts to letting other countries decide your foreign policy for you. By contrast, the Qatari model seeks instead to be on good terms with all sides in most disputes, and the value of that approach has been on display for years: Doha has successfully used its good offices as a mediator in the past, and more recently it has done the same for ceasefire talks and other negotiations between Israel and Hamas.

This same philosophy also informs Qatar’s stances in the Mediterranean, where it looks for the warmest possible relations with Greece and Cyprus while simultaneously maintaining close ties with Türkiye, with which both Athens and Nicosia have been at odds for decades. I should mention, too, that Cyprus follows a similar path, maintaining friendly relations with both Israel and Lebanon, for example.

Both Cyprus and Greece also would like to play central roles in the development and buildout of facilities aimed at carrying energy to the European mainland. This is a core part of their respective plans to grow and develop their respective economies, and the necessary investment and expertise will require strong partnerships.

Q: So how do these priorities tie in with the emir’s visit?

A: In several ways, really. First, HH the emir’s goodwill visit is a reconnection: the COVID pandemic threw a lot of international issues into hibernation as governments everywhere spent a lot of time looking inward for several years. By visiting now, he’s demonstrating in general that he values Qatar’s relationships with both Cyprus and Greece. The reengagement also bodes well for particulars, and there are several opportunities for cooperation because the parties can help one another. Both Greece and Cyprus want to be part of plans to open new channels for natural gas into Europe, whether it’s Eastern Mediterranean gas or from further afield. For this they could find no better partner than Qatar, which, in addition to its own worldleading LNG industry, has also been acquiring stakes in energy assets around the world. But both countries also want investment in other sectors, too, and once again, both the Qatar Investment Authority, the country’s sovereign fund, and various private investors are on the hunt for moneymaking ventures.

Q: What does the emir’s trip mean for Greece, in particular?

A: To me the time looks ripe for more cooperation. The period since 20072008 has been very difficult, but the current government under Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis has done wonders, not just to stabilize the Greek economy and restore hope to the population, but also to help Greece regain its rightful place at the European table. The country is now looking to build on this foundation by fully embracing cuttingedge sectors like digital connectivity and cleantech, but also by reinvigorating its traditional shipping expertise by becoming a major logistics center and by getting more out if its hospitality sector, too. The long recession is over, and some asset classes look very attractive to Qatari investors – and others, as well – especially given the stronger, cleaner governance and leadership on which Mitsotakis has built his reputation.

Q: What about Cyprus?

A: Another European land of opportunity. All other things being equal, if the world operated according to logic instead of politics, Cyprus would already be a major energy hub. Its location makes it the ideal base for the Eastern Med’s burgeoning offshore gas industry, which also includes strategic ports, telecoms, and other support services. Many analysts see real potential in several sectors, including ports, banking, and a host of technologies. The increased economic activity will also introduce more people to the beaches and other attractions that make the island’s tourism industry so popular. Another ingredient is leadership: President Nikos Christodoulides has been in office for less than a year, but the former diplomat and foreign minister has already shown himself to be both a highly competent Head of State and a stern defender of his country’s economic development & interests.

And all this is not to mention the shipping of the gas itself, for Cyprus is not just part of the European Union: it is also very much an East Mediterranean country, so it stands to reason that it should become a gateway through which some of the world’s newest gas producers can sell their wares into the world’s largest gas market. Whether it’s a pipeline to Greece, an LNG plant to supply customers in Asia and East Africa, or both, it’s a nobrainer that Cyprus is the place to start the journey. To me, this is Cyprus’ destiny, and if it’s further Qatari investment that makes it happen, so much the better. Remember, too, that QatarEnergy is already involved in Cyprus’ gas industry, partnering with ExxonMobil to explore two offshore blocks. The Qataris know the LNG business like no one else, and their robust & steady reliability as partners is unchallenged: in 20172021, despite an illegal blockade imposed by some of their neighbors, they continued to process and ship at the highest rates to keep supplying LNG to all of their customers around the world, helping to calm world markets during a very vulnerable period.

“Baroudi, left, with Mitsotakis at the 2019 EUArab World Summit in Athens, before the latter became Greece’s prime minister. According to Baroudi, Mitsotakis has done much to speed his country’s recovery.”

Finally, the role played by Qatar and its leaders has captured the attention of the international community due to the wise policies of the Ruler of the Gulf state. His efforts have been lauded and appreciated by East and West alike, ranging from visits of goodwill by the Emir to regional countries, to forging relations based on mutual respect and cooperation. It also has been noted that visits by the Emir tend to manifest high levels of support in mediation, bringing peace, providing materials or otherwise, as and when needed.