ON THE SURFACE President Anastasiades’ visit to Israel was a success. He had a productive though short meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu he met President Peres, members of the Knesset and addressed a business forum in Israel. “We are inaugurating a new era in relations between our two countries,” he said pointing out that Cyprus was Israel’s “most reliable neighbour”.
His Israeli hosts also restricted themselves to generalities, Peres stating that the two countries were linked in many ways and that “we regard Cyprus as a close friend both politically and geographically.” But other than the exchange of diplomatic niceties little of substance came from the president’s visit, other than the discussion of pending agreements on health, research and development, technology, culture and fighting terrorism.
Nothing was mentioned by the Israeli side about the main concern of the Cyprus government – energy co-operation – despite Anastasiades raising the issue in his public addresses. It may have been too early to expect any response from Israel although the president stated that Cyprus had decided to go ahead with plans to build an onshore LNG plant which would export LNG to Europe and the Far East. He conceded that the two sides were still at the “stage of consultations”.
It could not be otherwise, given that the Cyprus government does not seem to have carried out an in-depth viability study of this project that would cost in the region of €15 billion. All we know is that during one of his television addresses, Anastasiades declared that the government would go ahead with the construction of a LNG plant. Perhaps this was an attempt at boosting public morale, but a declaration of intent is not enough, when discussing a multi-billion euro project, especially before we have a reliable estimate of the quantities of natural gas in our exclusive economic zone.
The government needs to have a concrete, comprehensive proposal for a LNG plant to attract any interest in the enterprise from Israel. But Israel could have other plans as Netanyahu’s recent apology to Turkey over the flotilla incident would suggest. This was a significant retreat by Israel which seems determined to mend relations with Turkey. Could this have anything to do with the fact that the most cost-effective way for Israel to sell its natural gas is through pipelines running through Turkey?
Nobody knows the answer, but what we do know is that the Cyprus government needs to commission an in-depth study by experts, regarding the viability of a LNG plant if it wants its plans to be taken seriously by prospective partners.