AFP

European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen and Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi landed in Israel on Monday as the EU seeks to wean itself off Russian fossil fuel imports. 

Both leaders were due to hold energy talks in Israel, which has turned from a natural gas importer into an exporter in recent years because of major offshore finds.

Von der Leyen was to meet Foreign Minister Yair Lapid later Monday and Prime Minister Naftali Bennett on Tuesday, with talks expected to focus “in particular on energy cooperation”, a commission statement said.

Draghi, on his first Middle East trip since taking office last year, will also discuss energy and food security during his two-day trip, Italian media reported.  

Both leaders will on Tuesday meet Palestinian prime minister Mohammed Shtayyeh in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

The EU this month formally adopted a ban on most Russian oil imports, its toughest sanctions yet over the war in Ukraine. Von der Leyen has suggested the bloc end its dependence on Russian hydrocarbons, including gas, by 2027.

Draghi and other EU leaders have warned European customers may need protection as energy costs continue to rise.  

Israeli Energy Minister Karine Elharrar and other officials have said their country could help meet EU demand if it can deliver gas from its offshore reserves estimated at nearly 1,000 billion cubic metres.

Ahead of Von der Leyen’s visit, European Commission spokeswoman Dana Spinant told reporters to “stay tuned for announcements that we are going to make on energy cooperation with Israel and other partners in the region”.

– Export options –

For now, getting Israeli gas to Europe is fraught with challenges and would require major and long-term infrastructure investments. 

With no pipeline linking its offshore fields to Europe, one option for now is piping natural gas to Egypt, where it could be liquified for export by ship to Europe. 

Another possible scenario is building a pipeline to Turkey. 

Israel’s ties with Ankara have thawed after more than a decade of diplomatic rupture and experts have said Turkey’s desire for joint energy projects has partly triggered its outreach to Israel.  

That pipeline project would take $1.5 billion and two to three years to complete, according to Israel’s former energy minister Yuval Steizitz, now an opposition lawmaker. 

Option three is known as the EastMed project, a proposal for a seafloor pipeline linking Israel with Cyprus and Greece. 

Experts have, however, raised concerns about the cost and viability of the project, while Israel has said it would like to see Italy sign on. 

A spokesperson for Elharrar, the Israeli energy minister, told AFP on Monday there have been talks since March to create an agreement or legal framework to enable Israeli gas exports to Europe via Egypt.

Further complicating Israel’s offshore gas production is a long-running maritime border dispute with Lebanon. 

The neighbours technically remain at war but have agreed to US-mediated talks aimed at delineating the border to allow both countries to boost exploration. 

Talks broke down last year but Israel has urged Lebanon to re-engage. 

Tensions flared this month following a Lebanese claim that Israeli production was taking place in contested waters.

Israel countered that the area was located clearly south of the disputed zone. 

The US envoy mediating the maritime border talks, Amos Hochstein, was due in Lebanon on Monday. 

Spanish unions called on staff at low-cost airline Ryanair on Monday to hold a six-day strike at the start of the summer holidays, the latest action by aviation industry workers to demand better conditions in Europe.

The planned work stoppage could cause more travel headaches in Europe, where strikes and shortages of staff have hit a sector that has started to recover from the Covid pandemic.

The call for flight crew to walk out from June 24 to July 2 aims to push Ireland’s Ryanair to reach a deal that “guarantees decent work conditions for all personnel” at the airline, the USO and SITCPLA unions said in a joint statement.

Ryanair is the only international airline not to have a collective bargaining agreement that defines workplace conditions for its Spanish employees, according to the trade unions.

It finally agreed to negotiate eight months ago, but ended talks after reaching a deal, which includes minimum pay and flight hours previsions, with one union that does not have a majority among flight crew.

Both the USO and SITCPLA unions believe that the agreement is insufficient and does not respect Spanish labour law.

“We don’t expect labour conflicts this summer,” Ryanair told AFP, adding the agreement it had reached in Spain had brought real improvements for staff.

The strike would come as summer holidays get underway in European countries and a recovery in air travel following the lifting of most Covid-19 travel restrictions.

The boom in demand has caught short some airlines and airports that shed staff during the pandemic and which are having trouble rehiring employees, as well as facing demands for wage hikes and better working conditions.

Staff shortages have disrupted flights in London, Amsterdam and Frankfurt in recent weeks.

Meanwhile, French easyJet pilots have warned management that the British low-cost airline faces having to cancel a massive number of flights this summer due to staff shortages.

The head of the SNPL pilots union at the airline, Arnaud Wiplier, said the unions sent a letter last week after management did not appear to realise the extent of the risk despite having to cancel flights during three-day holiday weekends last month.

Strikes at Paris’s main airport on Thursday led to a quarter of flights being grounded, runways closed and passengers delayed

Nearly 1,000 SAS pilots have threatened to go on indefinite strike from the end of June after talks broke down with the Scandinavian airline.

The battle for broadcast rights for the Indian Premier League reached fever pitch on Monday with global media giants reportedly bidding $5.65 billion to show and stream the hugely popular cricket contest.

Attracting some of cricket’s top stars from India and abroad with large salaries, the pioneering IPL helped make Twenty20, a shorter and more exciting format of the sport, hugely popular, spawning copycat events worldwide.

The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) began an online auction on Sunday for four different packages to show the annual two-month event, attracting giants such as Disney, Sony and Indian tycoon Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance group.

On Monday TV rights for the Indian market were sold for $3.02 billion while the digital streaming segment went for $2.56 billion for five seasons from 2023 to 2027, but it was unclear to whom, media reports said.

Two more packages of non-exclusive digital rights for 18 games including the play-offs as well and another for overseas TV and digital rights will likely be decided Tuesday.

This dwarfs the $2.55 billion paid in 2017 by Star India, owned by US behemoth Disney, for the previous TV and digital rights deal that expired last month with the conclusion of the 15th edition of the tournament.

Sony had televised the IPL for the first 10 years since the league started in 2008.

Jeff Bezos’s Amazon, which has spent hundreds of millions of dollars on rights for European soccer and American football,  had earlier shown interest in the IPL but pulled out of the contest ahead of the auction.

Spanish unions called on staff at low-cost airline Ryanair on Monday to hold a six-day strike at the start of the summer holidays, the latest action by aviation industry workers to demand better conditions in Europe.

The planned work stoppage could cause more travel headaches in Europe, where strikes and shortages of staff have hit a sector that has started to recover from the Covid pandemic.

The call for flight crew to walk out from June 24 to July 2 aims to push Ireland’s Ryanair to reach a deal that “guarantees decent work conditions for all personnel” at the airline, the USO and SITCPLA unions said in a joint statement.

Ryanair is the only international airline that does not have a collective bargaining agreement that defines workplace conditions for its Spanish employees, according to the trade unions.

It finally agreed to negotiate with trade unions eight months ago, but ended talks after reaching a deal, which includes minimum pay and flight hours previsions, with one union that does not have a majority among flight crew.

Both the USO and SITCPLA unions believe that the agreement is insufficient and doesn’t respect Spanish labour law.

The strike would come as summer holidays get underway in European countries and a recovery in air travel following the lifting of most Covid-19 travel restrictions.

The boom in demand has caught short some airlines and airports that shed staff during the pandemic and which are having trouble rehiring employees as well as facing demands for wage hikes and better working conditions.

Staff shortages have disrupted flights in London, Amsterdam and Frankfurt in recent weeks.

Strikes at Paris’s main airport on Thursday led to a quarter of flights being grounded, runways closed and passengers delayed

Nearly 1,000 SAS pilots have threatened to go on indefinite strike from the end of June after talks broke down with the Scandinavian airline.

European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen and Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi were headed to Israel Monday as the EU seeks to wean itself off Russian fossil fuel imports. 

Both leaders were due to hold energy talks in Israel, which has turned from a natural gas importer into an exporter in recent years because of major offshore finds.

Von der Leyen was to meet Foreign Minister Yair Lapid on Monday and Prime Minister Naftali Bennett on Tuesday, with talks expected to focus “in particular on energy cooperation,” a commission statement said.

Mario Draghi, on his first Middle East trip since taking office last year, will also discuss energy and food security during his two-day trip, Italian media reported.  

Both leaders will on Tuesday meet Palestinian prime minister Mohammed Shtayyeh in the occupied West Bank.

The EU this month formally adopted a ban on most Russian oil imports, its toughest sanctions yet over the war in Ukraine. Von der Leyen has suggested the bloc end its dependence on Russian hydrocarbons, including gas, by 2027.

Draghi and other EU leaders have warned European customers may need protection as energy costs continue to rise.  

Israeli Energy Minister Karine Elharrar and other officials have said their country could help meet EU demand if it can deliver gas from its offshore reserves estimated at nearly 1,000 billion cubic metres.

Ahead of Von der Leyen’s visit, European Commission spokeswoman Dana Spinant told reporters to “stay tuned for announcements that we are going to make on energy cooperation with Israel and other partners in the region.”

– Export options –

For now, getting Israeli gas to Europe is fraught with challenges and would require major and long-term infrastructure investments. 

With no pipeline linking its offshore fields to Europe, one option for now is piping natural gas to Egypt, where it could be liquified for export by ship to Europe. 

Another possible scenario is building a pipeline to Turkey. 

Israel’s ties with Ankara have thawed after more than a decade of diplomatic rupture and experts have said Turkey’s desire for joint energy projects has partly triggered its outreach to Israel.  

That pipeline project would take $1.5 billion and two to three years to complete, according to Israel’s former energy minister Yuval Steizitz, now an opposition lawmaker. 

Option three is known as the EastMed project, a proposal for a seafloor pipeline linking Israel with Cyprus and Greece. 

Experts have, however, raised concerns about the cost and viability of the project, while Israel has said it would like to see Italy sign on. 

Further complicating Israel’s offshore gas production is a long-running maritime border dispute with Lebanon. 

The neighbours technically remain at war but have agreed to US-mediated talks aimed at delineating the border to allow both countries to boost exploration. 

Talks broke down last year but Israel has urged Lebanon to re-engage. 

Tensions flared this month following a Lebanese claim that Israeli production was taking place in contested waters.

Israel countered that the area was located clearly south of the disputed zone. 

The US envoy mediating the maritime border talks, Amos Hochstein, was due in Lebanon on Monday. 

French President Emmanuel Macron on Monday called for a boost to defence budgets following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, saying France was now on a “war economy” footing. 

Speaking at Eurosatory, a weapons industry fair, Macron said Europe needed “a much larger defence industry” to avoid relying on suppliers elsewhere for its equipment needs.

Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February, France “has entered into a war economy in which I believe we will find ourselves for a long time”.

Macron said he had asked the defence ministry and armed forces chiefs of staff to adjust a six-year framework defence spending plan running to 2025 to the new geopolitical situation, to “match the means to the threats”.

Even before Ukraine, French military spending had gradually increased since Macron came to power in 2017 to reach 41 billion euros ($43 billion) this year, and is currently scheduled to hit 50 billion euros in 2025.

“We didn’t wait for strategic changes to re-invest,” Macron said, but Russia’s war had created “an additional need to move faster and become stronger at a lower cost”.

Macron said that “anybody doubting the urgency of these efforts only needs to look to Ukraine, where soldiers are asking for quality weaponry and they are entitled to a response from us”.

According to Le Monde newspaper, the government’s armament agency DGA is considering a draft law that would allow the requisitioning of civilian equipment or civilian factories to make weapons.

As European governments bolster defence budgets, they need a larger EU-based defence industry to meet the new military needs, Macron said.

“Let’s not repeat the errors of the past going forward,” he said. “Spending large sums on purchases from elsewhere is not a good idea.”

Europe needs a defence industry that is “much stronger and much more ambitious” than now, he said, “or we will create our own future dependencies”.

A European fighter plan project is, according to experts, currently running about a decade late, while a new French-German battle tank project, MGCS, is not expected to be operational for nearly another two decades.