Papastavrou in Washington: Greece and Cyprus Are Strategic Hubs in the New Energy Map
Greek Energy Minister Stavros Papastávrou told a 87-country, 1,900-delegate forum in Washington this week that Greece sits at the center of a rapidly shifting global energy architecture, one that is moving away from east-west gas flows toward a new set of vertical and diagonal corridors.
Speaking alongside Cyprus Energy Minister Michalis Damianos at the Atlantic Council's Global Energy Forum, Papastávrou described three overlapping structures. The first is a vertical corridor bringing American LNG into Greece and pushing it northward through Bulgaria and Romania all the way to Moldova and Ukraine. The second is a strategic triangle linking Greece, Cyprus, and Israel, which becomes a four-way partnership with U.S. involvement.
"Energy is a bridge again for the region" — Papastávrou
The third is the East Med Gas Forum, where, according to the minister, Israeli and Palestinian government representatives sat at the same table just days ago for the first time in three years. He called energy "a bridge again for the region" and pointed to the IMEC diagonal route as a further layer of the new architecture.
On the weaponization of energy, Papastávrou was direct, saying Europe learned the hard way from both the invasion of Ukraine and the current situation at the Strait of Hormuz that allowing any state, whether Russia, Iran, or anyone else, to use energy as leverage is a systemic risk that Europe must collectively refuse to accept.
After the panel, he met with Cheniere Executive Vice President Anatol Feygin. Cheniere is the largest LNG producer and exporter in the United States and second largest in the world. He also held a bilateral with Egyptian Oil Minister Karim Badawi, where they discussed the Greece-Egypt electricity interconnection project known as GREGY and carbon capture technology, with Papastávrou extending an invitation to Badawi to visit Greece in July, which was accepted.
The minister also attended an Atlantic Council dinner with Kuwait Petroleum Company CEO Sheikh Nawaf Al Sabah, Trump White House energy advisor Jarrod Agen, and former Biden advisor Amos Hochstein. Today, Papastávrou travels to Houston with U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright for the 3+1 Energy Initiative ministerial, where the founding declaration of the East Mediterranean Energy Center at Rice University is expected to be signed.
