The importance of the 3+1 scheme (Greece-Cyprus-Israel-USA) was stressed by Deputy Foreign Minister Tasos Hatzivasileiou, speaking to the Athens-Macedonian News Agency (ANA-MPA) on the sidelines of the 6th ECONOMIST conference on the Eastern Mediterranean.

He added that Greece sees this cooperation as strategic and multidimensional.

“We discussed at ECONOMIST the 3+1 scheme (Greece-Cyprus-Israel-USA) and the prospects for cooperation with the countries participating in it, and I emphasised the strategic relationship that Greece has with the United States, but also the very close, fraternal relationship that it has with Cyprus and the partnership that our country also has with Israel,” he stressed.

The discussion, he said, extended beyond energy, touching on areas such as security, innovation, technology and artificial intelligence.

“We also talked about energy cooperation in the Eastern Mediterranean and how this is important not only for the countries of the region, but also for the US. Also, in the context of the conference, we discussed the way of cooperation of the 3+1 scheme and how we can expand the possibilities. That is, in addition to energy, we talked about security, technology, innovation, artificial intelligence, namely fields of modern challenges that can be useful in the 3+1 scheme,” Hatzivasileiou noted.

He reiterated his view that the 3+1 scheme can function as a tool for promoting the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC).

“I personally mentioned that Greece believes that 3+1 as a platform can also be used as a tool to promote the idea of the IMEC economic corridor. We believe in IMEC and its importance as well as that Greece, due to its geographical and geopolitical position, could become a natural gateway for the IMEC corridor to Europe. We also talked about the cooperation of the 3+1 scheme in energy, giving particular emphasis to interconnection projects. The importance of the GREGY cable, which will bring green energy from Egypt to the European market via Greece, was emphasised, as well as the Great Sea Interconnector, which will connect Greece with Cyprus and Israel, thus bringing Europe closer to the Middle East in energy terms,” he added.

Concluding, he underlined that these projects serve multiple geostrategic goals.