Changing Geopolitical Map

Likened to ‘Exodus,’ pacts alter Eastern Mediterranean; new ties within the Balkans reshape power balance, too

By Charles J. Mouratides, Executive Director, CHI www.chicircle.org

Yasha Hain, v.p. of Israel Electric Corp., added extra drama with his comments at the signing of the pact for an undersea energy connection between Israel and Europe via Cyprus and Greece: It is, he said, an “exodus from isolation,” similar to Israelites crossing the Red Sea.

The “EuroAsia Interconnector” initially provides a cable connection supplying electricity to Europe. In a second phase, a pipeline will transport natural gas when it becomes available from Eastern Mediterranean sea fields in Israel and Cyprus, and those anticipated from Greece.

The connector will tie Israel to the pan-European electricity network via Cyprus, Crete and the Peloponnese within 36 months. Israel signed the pact March 4, 2012, while Greece and Cyprus announced they will sign it at the end of the month.

But, selling electricity and gas, however important, are only a part of geostrategic developments in the broader Eastern Mediterranean area.

With the Eastern Mediterranean basin and its energy riches as a springboard, Israel has cultivated extraordinary relationships with several key Balkan countries, Romania and Bulgaria.

When their agreements are combined with pacts from Greece and Cyprus, they form a new force that also influences the Balkans, the Black Sea and beyond.

So, what’s next?

A quick review of seemingly isolated events in the past 5 years, especially since 2010, helps us connect the dots – in this case the cities — and find the answer.

In the beginning, in 2010, it was Greece and Israel. A 65-year-old cool  relationship between them warmed up suddenly, and made Eastern Mediterranean geopolitics stand on its head. Cyprus became a third partner in a series of economic and military agreements progressing quickly.

Then came the “flotilla” incidents that signaled the end of Greece’s knee-jerk support to Arab states. Simultaneously, along came murderous civil wars – the so-called Arab Spring – which revealed the cracks in dictator-run Eastern Mediterranean countries.

In the meantime, the Israeli discovery of major natural gas fields propelled forward the rise of the Eastern Mediterranean basin as the newest spot of  geopolitical interest, especially because much of the basin is within the EU.

In Balkan countries, in areas adjacent to the basin, strategic shifts underlined political developments.

Turkey, in a scheme to lead Balkan and Eastern Mediterranean countries under its banner, broke off its alliance with Israel.

Turkey’s Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and Foreign Affairs Minister Ahmet Davutoglu have preached their vision for a neo-Ottoman ϋber alles. They seek to revive the 19^th century Ottoman Empire which occupied lands from Palestine to the Black Sea, the Balkans and Eastern Europe.

Davutoglu, the theoretician of this vision, espoused it in his book Strategic Depth, and in a 2009 public speech in Sarajevo, capital of Bosnia-Herzegovina. Erdogan took his banner to Egypt, where he received a hero’s welcome and anointed himself protector of the Palestinians in Gaza and Judea-Samaria.

But Turkey’s campaign has not produced any tangible geopolitical returns. Eastern Mediterranean Arab nations do not trust Turkey, and Muslims in Balkan states remember the Ottoman Empire as a foreign occupier.

Israel, on the other hand, has launched an entirely different campaign that has produced favorable responses and, if continued, it is destined to change the Balkans geopolitically, regardless of Israel’s intentions.

Neighbors of the Eastern Mediterranean basin, EU and NATO members, Bulgaria and Romania seem to be eager to develop economic and defense pacts with Israel. They consider the gas discoveries important strategic assets.

These countries, like the rest of Europe, are dependent on oil supplied by Russia’s Western Siberia fields. Now they see an alternative resource in the Eastern Mediterranean. Bulgaria last year withdrew from an agreement to build the Burgas-Alexandroupolis pipeline, partly owned by Russia and aiming to bring Russian oil from the Black Sea to the Aegean via Bulgaria and Greece.

“… new natural gas deposits located in the Eastern Mediterranean is of great importance for our country since they could be an alternative source of energy supplies,” stated Bulgaria’s Foreign Minister Nikolay Mladenov in early March.

As with Greece, Israel’s pacts signed with Bulgaria and Romania contain similar features: Frequent ministerial-level meetings; trade cooperation; defense industry cooperation, and combined air force training/exercises in the respective countries. Israel, since 2000, has developed a special relation with Romania whose Carpathian topography resembles certain regions in Iran.

Israel emphasizes that none of these bilateral alliances are aimed at other countries. Still, for strategic purpose analysis, let’s simply draw a line joining Bucharest, Sofia, Athens, Nicosia and Jerusalem. It forms a wall west of Turkey.

Romania and Bulgaria are on the Black Sea — a almost closed body of water vital to Turkish oil and trade routes and to its defense. Bulgaria and Greece also have a common border with Turkey. Cyprus is close to the Turkish coast and the only EU country partially occupied by Turkey.

So far, the neo-Ottoman vision of Turkey has found no Balkan disciples, and Eastern Mediterranean basin Arabs have their own problems. Turkey’s threats on behalf of Arabs against Israel were fruitless. Finally, its threats against the Cypriot-Israeli natural gas drillings have sounded like an empty cymbal.

Today, the geostrategic map of the Eastern Mediterranean basin and the Balkans is shaping in ways unanticipated even 3 years ago.                                                                                                                   ###

CHI-CIRCLE FOR HELLAS & ISRAEL /International Friends for Greece-Israel Alliance, is a non-profit organization, registered in the State of Illinois.. Our mission is to encourage and help secure the long-term creative viability of the historic alliance between Israel and Hellas, and between Hellenism and Judaism in the Balkans, in Eastern Mediterranean and in the Diaspora.  CHI aims to accomplish its mission through cultural, educational and business programs with an emphasis on people-to-people contacts.