EMGF (East Mediterranean Gas Forum)

The East Mediterranean Gas Forum (EMGF) was announced in 2019 in Cairo.
On September 22, 2020, the member countries signed an formal charter to create a new intergovernmental organization that includes:

• Cyprus
• Egypt
• Greece
• Israel
  
• Italy
• Jordan
• Palestine

The group unites regional rivals of Turkey, which has been locked in a bitter dispute with European Union members Greece and Cyprus over gas drilling rights in the region.

The EMGF has become the 1^st international organisation that brings together gas producers, consumers, and transit countries in the world into one entity, unlike many similar international bodies whose membership is limited to exporting or importing countries.

Political experts and decision-making circles believe that the fledgling organisation will contribute to supporting and financing the existing and new infrastructure for gas, such as pipelines and export facilities in member states, reducing the cost of production and transportation, and ensuring a steady supply of gas at competitive prices to markets at the heart of Europe and elsewhere from the eastern Mediterranean.

It is expected that the forum will draw great international interest in the foreseeable future, especially from the Mediterranean countries that have not joined yet, such as Lebanon, Syria and Libya, and perhaps Spain, Portugal and Algeria, and from world importers of gas, such as India, China and Japan, and even Turkey may find itself forced to join at a later stage and submit to its conditions.

France had already requested to join the forum in 2020, and the United States has become a permanent observer, which gives the forum important international weight.