"Does Energy Cause Ethnic War?" This is the title of a highly topical book by Marika Karagiannis and Andreas Stergiou which was just published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing and investigates the East Mediterranean gas and regional conflict."Does Energy Cause Ethnic War?" This is the title of a highly topical book by Marika Karagiannis and Andreas Stergiou which was just published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing and investigates the East Mediterranean gas and regional conflict.
The Caspian Sea and the Eastern Mediterranean are two regions with abundant energy resources. Their gas routes to Europe intersect and actors, exporters, pipeline owners and operators, transit states and downstream customers are connected to one another in a web of political and economic interdependencies. More significantly, these regions have been plagued by deep-seated ethnic conflicts and disputes: namely, the two oldest registered in the United Nations (the Cyprus and the Arab-Israeli Conflicts), the Nagorno-Karabakh problem, the Syria War and numerous tensions in the Eastern Mediterranean, the Caspian Sea and the Balkan regions. This book investigates what impact these energy resources have had on the respective conflicts and disputes, as well as their influence on the power game between the EU and Russia.
Andreas Stergiou is Associate Professor at the Department of Economics of the University of Thessaly, Greece, and a Teaching Fellow at the Open University of Greece. He has previously been Visiting Research Fellow at the Truman Institute for the Advancement of Peace at Hebrew University, Israel, at the Institute of World Economy and International Relations of the Russian Academy of Sciences, and at the Azerbaijan Diplomatic Academy (ADA University).
Marika Karagianni is a legal and political expert, and previously worked as Special Advisor on Bilateral and Multilateral Energy Relations to the Ministers and Deputy Ministers of Foreign Affairs of the Hellenic Republic. She is currently a permanent expert at the Hellenic Government on energy security, and holds a PhD on the "Legal Aspects of Offshore Hydrocarbons’ Development in the Caspian Sea” from the Democritus University of Thrace, Greece. She is also a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Department of Political Science and International Relations of the University of Peloponnese.
In a book presentation event which was organized by the Institute of International Economic Relations, in Athens on January 14, IENE participated through an intervention by its chairman Mr. Costis Stambolis. In addition, Mr. John Maniatis, ex minister and currently Associate Professor at the University of Piraeus and Dr. Michael Myrianthis, a well-known energy expert, contributed useful commentary stressing the role of resolving regional conflicts in the Caspian and the Eastern Mediterranean, while also focusing on the pivotal role of the EastMed pipeline and the role of the Caspian for the EU Southern Corridor.
