EU meeting in Cyprus: Arab leaders join final day of talks on energy costs

[0:00] arab leaders are attending the final day of a summit of european leaders in cyprus where the [0:05] war in the middle east and ukraine have topped the agenda europe's been focusing on potential [0:10] steps to reduce europe's reliance on energy from the middle east as well as efforts to diversify [0:15] supplies the european union imports around 14 of its energy from the middle east and much of that [0:21] flows through the strait of hermuz everybody was very clear that the freedom of navigation [0:27] is non-negotiable so the strait of hermuz has to be open without any tolls and we need to make [0:34] efforts to that and of course as we have the operation as beat us in atalanta actually in [0:40] the region the fastest way to put this coalition of the willing together is to use those missions [0:49] to ramp them up to strengthen them with the ships and and tools that capabilities that are needed [0:56] there are companies that are currently benefiting from the rise in crude oil prices and therefore [1:05] we need to take coordinated action so that as we did during the russian energy crisis [1:11] attacks on large energy companies is introduced again to help finance a large part of the measures [1:18] that are currently enabling us to protect citizens businesses and industries narrow challenge joins us [1:24] now from nicosia in cyprus there is this big meeting today we are expecting a statement is it going to [1:32] say very clearly we're pivoting away from middle east oil well they've already been saying that over the [1:42] last few days that they've been trying to find a way to essentially diversify eu energy supplies to [1:52] put more emphasis on electrification trying to boost things like uh heat pumps and houses and electric [1:59] cars and that sort of thing to do that they are trying to readdress the the tax burden so that [2:06] taxing electricity always comes in lower than taxing fossil fuels but they're not going the big guns that [2:12] they uh that they went after russia invaded ukraine uh back in 2022 they're trying to keep some uh nuclear [2:19] options uh in the in the tank in case this energy situation gets worse but as we heard from kaya [2:26] callas there what the eu is trying to do is to position itself as uh part of the solution uh essentially [2:35] uh to this conflict not part of the problem so trying to safeguard safe passage through the straits [2:41] of hormones but of course it's saying it will only do this once um the conflict has finished and [2:47] and the firing has absolutely stopped kaya callas is talking about how there are two ongoing uh naval [2:55] missions in the region as speedies and atalanta she wants those to be beefed up as a way of um [3:01] safeguarding uh energy supplies through the straits of hormones uh and essentially positioning the eu [3:08] although it says this is not its war as a way for this whole situation to de-escalate and get back to [3:16] normal but the eu's military potency is always a point of question now we've seen some major leaders [3:24] of arab countries are there what are they hoping to get out the summit yeah so some pretty important [3:33] people arrived here in the last hour or two uh president sisi of egypt president our own of of [3:41] lebanon al-shara of uh of syria the secretary general of the gcc the crown prince of jordan they [3:48] were all invited basically to come here to talk about this ongoing crisis uh in in the middle east [3:55] with iran uh i think that the the the outlook that the eu has at the moment the concern that it has [4:02] is that its relevance as a diplomatic actor in the middle east is is increasingly in question at a time [4:12] when this whole region is in huge turmoil it wants to show that it is an important player still and [4:19] that it has these conversations it can invite these people they can come here and they can discuss things [4:25] and the eu is at the end of uh you know a plane ride or the end of a phone line when leaders such [4:33] as cc and our own and shara etc uh feel that they need diplomatic help in sorting out problems in in [4:41] their part of the world this meeting though is not necessarily about definitive decisions at the end [4:48] this is an informal meeting it's more of a talking shop it's a brainstorming exercise it's a dialogue [4:55] don't necessarily expect concrete action to be taken off the back of it rory challenge live for us there [5:02] from nicosia thank you