The future of the EU and North Africa: renewables?

Official URL: http://risc01.sabanciuniv.edu/record=b1606901 (Table of Contents)

The EU with its clean energy targets and advanced technology constitutes a perfect match in theory with renewable energy rich south Mediterranean (Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Morocco, Tunisia), which has not been the case yet. Further collaboration in the field of renewable energy between them has not been realized. The thesis argues that the EU’s one-size-fits-all approach alienates these states and slows down the process. Bilateral agreements based upon projects may be a solution to overcome this problem. Although among three of the initiatives handled, UfM is the closest to this solution there are still challenges caused by the states themselves. Energy subsidies, political uprisings, superiority of conventional resources and barriers due to financial and regulatory shortcomings are just some analyzed in the scope of this thesis. All of the problems were elaborated on individually using examples from the five countries mentioned above. Moreover two large-scale projects (Desertec and the MSP) were examined as case studies to bind the theoretical discussion to real-life situations. Although they were project-based initiatives the specific needs of the relevant countries were not taken into account again, which lead to their failure. Before reaching this conclusion, energy outlook and regulations related to renewables of the five states were analyzed in detail. After that the evolution of the EU – North African relations were dwelled on with emphasis on the renewables. Before the conclusion, future prospect of this relation was given.