The conference, The EU and North Africa on Energy and Migration: What Prospects after the Arab Spring?, held at the European Commission Representation in Rome, is part of the second stage of a series of meetings organized by IAI in collaboration with the Institute Parelleli of Turin on the future of the North African region following the transformative events unleashed by the so-called Arab Spring.

Balancing interests and values – acquiring energy resources and promoting human rights – is the crux of relations between the EU and Central Asia, whose huge natural resources reserves, especially gas and oil, are drawing increasing attention by international actors, such as the European Union, as well as Russia, China and the US. Vanessa Boas, Exact researcher at IAI, presented a paper at a seminar on these issues on March 26th at the IAI library.

Just a few days after the signing of the Memorandum of Understanding between Italy, Albania and Greece in support of the realization of the Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP), and prior to the presentation of the National Energy Strategy by the Monti government in Italy, IAI organized a seminar with the aim of analyzing the role of natural gas in the country’s future energy picture.