North Africa: Meeting Examines Ways of Further Integrating Maghreb and European Electricity Markets

Tunis — A meeting was held in Friday in Tunis on “the clearance and sustainability of the shares of the training activities undertaken by the project of the progressive integration of the Maghreb Electricity Market (IMME) in the EU's electricity market”.

• The “IMME” project requires a legislative and regulatory framework and it strengthens industrial structures of Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco, to create a sub-regional electricity market. These legislations should at first be in accordance with European standards in this sector so as to integrate in the EU’s electricity market.
• The objective of this meeting is to identify the appropriate mechanisms to ensure the clearance of these trainings for the beneficiary countries and the sustainability of training activities at the regional level.
• Inaugurating the meeting, Mr. Abdelaziz Rassaa, the Secretary of State for Renewable Energy and Food Industries, said that several electrical interconnections with Algeria and Libya were recently implemented and namely the ‘Transtunisian’ pipeline linking Algeria to Italy with a capacity of 33.5 billion cubic meters per year.
• He stressed that the project is a model of partnership and thus strengthens the role of Tunisia as a transit country, adding that new projects of cooperation with Italy for the construction by the private sector of a 1200 MW power plant and d a submarine cable of 1000 MW for electricity interconnection, are currently under study.
• He also reviewed, the existing partnerships setup with Libya and Algeria through imports of crude oil (Libya), natural gas (Algeria) and petroleum products (Libya, Algeria and Morocco).
• Regarding electricity, the existing interconnections are strengthened by the projects of transport infrastructure currently underway, as part the electric loop around the Mediterranean (MEDRING), said the Secretary of State.
• The implementation of 400 KV line currently under construction along the Mediterranean, should make it technically possible increase trade and the beginning of a regional market for electricity. The line between Tunisia and Algeria is scheduled for 2010.
• The IMME project, is part of the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership launched by the Barcelona Process (1995) and the Euro-Mediterranean Forum (1997), whose general objective is to create a free trade zone between the Mediterranean countries and the EU.
• The activities planned under this project initiated in 2007 and will end in June 2010, focused on supporting the development of electricity markets, capacity building (technical, technological, industrial, regulatory and management) via the dissemination of suitable knowledge.
• This meeting was an opportunity to review the training activities undertaken by the project in 3 countries and Tunisia in particular. These include 121 days of training for some 1153 participants.