The Eastern Mediterranean’s Dependency Trap

The ongoing war in the Gulf and the disruption of commercial traffic through the Strait of Hormuz have renewed a familiar concern that Europe’s energy security remains vulnerable to Middle Eastern chokepoints. For over a decade, the eastern Mediterranean appeared to offer part of the solution. Since the discovery there of significant offshore natural gas reserves in 2009, American and European policymakers have explored the idea that the region’s gas could be a reliable energy source for Europe, and that the infrastructure for transporting the gas would support future east-west connectivity. These two factors, policymakers believed, would advance transatlantic interests and increase regional security.

But these goals are frustrated because the eastern Mediterranean is neither a unified political space nor a region in which commercial incentives for offshore natural gas development have consistently focused on the European market. Recent developments impacting the eastern Mediterranean’s energy future also raise serious doubts about whether the original promise of its gas will be realized.

Four developments illustrate how that future is being shaped.

First, there is the consolidation of the region’s energy around Egyptian export infrastructure and the accompanying risk. In January, the Leviathan field partners expanded their export arrangement by routing natural gas from Israel to Egypt. In a similar move, ENI and TotalEnergies intend, via their Final Investment Decision (FID), to export the Kronos field’s reserves from Cyprus to Egypt’s liquefaction terminals. Both decisions rely on a common logic: Egypt has a growing population, high demand for energy, and infrastructure that could export surplus natural gas to destinations including Europe. In addition, Egypt, compared to the alternatives, requires less new investment and poses fewer immediate political complications. The challenge is that two of the region’s most profitable gas assets now flow through a single node, exposing the entire system to Egyptian economic and political stability. For US-aligned partners such as Israel and Cyprus, this architecture, designed to support their energy interests, is building dependencies on a country whose longer-term stability is not guaranteed. For Europe, the once-promised diversified supply routes for eastern Mediterranean gas have narrowed to Egyptian demand and chokepoints.

The second development is the growing Gulf investment in eastern Mediterranean energy and its implications for influence over the region’s infrastructure strategy. Days after the Kronos FID was announced, QatarEnergy and ExxonMobil signed a new investment agreement with Egypt that covers this infrastructure. But Egypt already imports Qatari natural gas, and the new agreement deepens that relationship, increasing the prospect of Egyptian dependence on Qatari capital. A state simultaneously serving as a transit hub for other countries’ energy and financially dependent on a single external investor could find itself in a weak political position. In fact, the agreement grants Doha a stake in Egypt’s and, by extension, Cyprus’ energy policies. Gulf capital, identified as a structural vulnerability in the case of the Strait of Hormuz, is being intentionally embedded in a substitute energy route.

The third development is Türkiye’s efforts to insert itself into the region’s energy landscape. The past decade featured assertive Turkish naval behavior around Cyprus and in the Aegean. But Ankara has since shifted tack, advancing its maritime claims across the eastern Mediterranean under the “Blue Homeland” doctrine while overseeing commercial agreements between state-owned energy company BOTAŞ and operators such as Chevron, BP, Shell, ENI, TotalEnergies, and Edison. All are invested in the region’s hydrocarbons. These arrangements give Türkiye more influence over future permit decisions, investment patterns, and project timetables. By advancing closer ties with key energy companies, Ankara secures itself a role in shaping future investment decisions without risking international criticism from naval brinkmanship.

The fourth development is the emergence of a commercially viable route that serves American and European energy interests without requiring the regional cooperation that US-endorsed frameworks such as the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC); the 3+1 partnership among Greece, Cyprus, Israel, and the United States; and the East Mediterranean Gas Forum (EMGF) were designed to produce. Chevron and ExxonMobil’s recent offshore investmentsnear Greece and the gradual development of the Vertical Corridor, a bidirectional north-south route delivering US liquefied natural gas (LNG) to southeastern Europe, do not depend on Egyptian infrastructure, Turkish goodwill, or Gulf capital. Unlike the other three developments, which reflect how regional actors are shaping the eastern Mediterranean’s energy future in ways that complicate transatlantic interests, the Vertical Corridor is an option that meets US energy export interests and partially addresses European energy needs. Washington, whether by design or not, has found a suitable alternative strategy even as it continues to champion a broader, if largely unrealized, framework for eastern Mediterranean cooperation.

These developments collectively expose the gap between commercial investment in eastern Mediterranean energy and the political processes advanced by the United States and other regional actors over the past decade and a half. Egypt, Qatar, and Türkiye each now possess the independent capacity to slow, redirect, or veto connectivity initiatives, and each has a concrete interest in ensuring that future infrastructure runs through its territory rather than around it. Initiatives such as the Eastern Mediterranean Gateway Act, which was recently introduced into Congress, seek to support IMEC, 3+1, and the EMGF but have had little impact on investment in the region.

This is unsurprising. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen may have recently promised that the EU will help find alternative avenues to deliver energy to the European continent, but senior US officials acknowledge that market realities will ultimately determine which energy projects advance. This is an admission that, despite the optimism around specific political frameworks, politicians and diplomats have failed to convince investors to join ranks. More worryingly, commercial decisions have created a dependency trap that increasingly hinges either on Egyptian stability and Gulf investment on the one hand, or on American LNG on the other. As Chris Ogunmodede and Hermine Sam have argued in the African context, Europe has repeatedly replaced one form of dependency with another while treating each transition as diversification. The eastern Mediterranean is following a similar pattern. Decisions that may be defendable from the narrow vantage point of specific energy contracts and short-term commercial interests are creating obstacles that could foreclose larger, more strategic investments in routes that enhance east-west connectivity and economic resilience, which were the premise for transatlantic energy diplomacy in the eastern Mediterranean.

Multilateral frameworks such as IMEC, 3+1, the EMGF, and the Gateway Act are useful instruments to advance a common strategy, but reinforcing familiar political formulas without addressing commercial motivations for investment will not produce different results. Closing that gap requires more than diplomatic platitudes. First, the United States and its partners need to bring together and align regional political and commercial actors. No existing framework performs this function, which means governments are guessing which incentives will shift commercial investment decisions. Second, political support for diversifying the eastern Mediterranean’s energy infrastructure means little if it runs counter to commercial incentives. If governments want energy companies to build different infrastructure, they need to make it worthwhile through direct investment, financial guarantees, or long-term purchase agreements. Absent that, companies will keep choosing Egypt. Third, and most challenging, many state actors benefit from the eastern Mediterranean’s political fragmentation. But a genuinely integrative framework becomes attractive only if it offers something more rewarding than the status quo, or if the status quo falters. That requires a degree of strategic coordination between Washington, Brussels, and regional actors that has never existed. It is also a harder task when American companies have found a more convenient option in the Vertical Corridor, an avenue that delivers US energy exports without the regional cooperation Washington and Brussels often lauded but never meaningfully incentivized.

The views expressed herein are those solely of the author(s). GMF as an institution does not take positions.