A painful fuel crunch and surging oil and gas prices tied to the Iran war have pushed the European Union to look at alternative routes for exporting energy, EU leaders said during an informal summit in Cyprus focused on security and rebuilding efforts in the Middle East.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said the bloc is ready to team up with Persian Gulf countries on new projects designed to move energy to global markets without leaving exports dependent on a single bottleneck. She presented the effort as part of a wider security lesson for Europe, arguing that attacks or threats affecting shipping through the Strait of Hormuz can ripple into European economies.
Speaking at a news conference at the end of the informal meeting of EU leaders in Nicosia, von der Leyen said the past month “have taught us a hard lesson.” She added, “Our security is not just related, it is intrinsically linked. A threat to a merchant vessel in the Strait of Hormuz is a threat to a factory, for example, in Belgium.” She said the EU executive is calling for closer defense cooperation and pointed to the EU’s maritime security mission in the Red Sea as a possible naval security option in the Persian Gulf.
Von der Leyen also said the EU would offer help focused on energy infrastructure in the region, including repairing and building Middle East energy sites. “We are also ready to team up with the Gulf countries to diversify export infrastructure away from solely the bottleneck of the Hormuz Strait,” she said, adding that the EU is prepared to help repair Gulf energy infrastructure damaged in the war.
The Strait of Hormuz handles about a fifth of the world’s oil and gas under normal conditions, and the war has largely closed the waterway, driving up fuel prices, von der Leyen said. Early Friday, Brent crude was up 98 cents at $100.33 a barrel, while U.S. benchmark crude rose 81 cents to $96.66 per barrel, according to the AP report. Von der Leyen also said the 27-nation bloc’s energy bill “in the last 43 days skyrocketed by 25 billion euros ($29.3 billion).” Neither von der Leyen nor European Council President Antonio Costa offered precise details on which projects the EU is weighing or the timeline for any decisions.
When describing potential avenues for connecting energy flows beyond Hormuz, von der Leyen pointed to the India-Middle-East-Europe Economic Corridor, a route she said links the EU with India and Gulf partners. She said a summit between the EU and the Gulf Cooperation Council scheduled for later this year would give both sides an opportunity to explore such projects.
The Cyprus-hosted summit also put the EU’s southern neighborhood strategy at the center of the talks. The rotating EU presidency is currently held by Cyprus, an island nation adjacent to Lebanon, Syria, Israel and Turkey. Cyprus President Nikos Christodoulides has sought to bring the bloc closer to countries in the Middle East to bolster their economies and security.
Guests at the informal summit underscored the focus on regional priorities and rebuilding, with Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa, Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah El Sissi, Lebanese President Joseph Aoun, Jordan’s Crown Prince Hussein, and GCC Secretary-General Jasem Mohamed AlBudaiwi all attending. Al-Sharaa said, “We know that Europe needs Syria as much as Syria needs Europe.” Aoun called for EU support for rebuilding his war-ravaged country.
Costa said Aoun has taken steps to ban military activities of Hezbollah that he described as “an existential threat” to Lebanon, and Costa pledged to assist Lebanon with disarming the group. Costa also said, “the European Union is not part of the conflict, but we will be part of this solution.”
While leaders discussed cooperation and rebuilding, human rights groups criticized the EU leaders for not increasing pressure on Israel regarding its military campaigns in the Middle East. In addition, EU leaders including German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said they would not lift sanctions on Iran until a range of issues are resolved, including ending Iran’s missile program and support for proxies in the region. “It’s too early to talk about relief of any kind of sanctions,” Costa said.
The summit also reflected heightened attention in the EU to threats that reach into member states. Cyprus was hit early in the war when a Shahed drone fired from Lebanon on March 2 damaged an aircraft hangar at a British military base on the island’s southern coast. The incident prompted Greece, France, Italy, Spain and the Netherlands to dispatch warships with anti-drone capabilities to defend the island, increasing interest in a clause in the EU’s founding treaties on mutual assistance if a member nation is attacked.
Christodoulides said the EU leaders agreed to begin creating a formal mechanism for responses to attacks rather than relying on “ad hoc arrangements,” which he said are unreliable.