The EU’s recent diplomacy towards Israel has consisted mainly of lectures on international law and proportionality. The failure of Brussels to confront the ongoing obstruction to the Great Sea Interconnector (GSI) project – a strategic energy project to bind Israel, Cypress, and Greece – shows the limits of moral posturing in the Middle East. It is time the EU adopted a serious approach to the region.

On the surface, the GSI is a model European project. It is green, cross-border, commercially useful, and strategically attractive. The EU committed substantial funds, including a €657 million grant, with wider EU investment of around €800 million in the €1.94 billion project. On paper, this is the regional architecture that Brussels wants. It ends Cypriot isolation from the European electricity grid, and Israel would be tied more closely to EU-aligned infrastructure in the Eastern Mediterranean. Greece would strengthen its role as a gateway between Europe and the Middle........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)