Miriam Dalli talks down Joseph Muscat's North Africa pipeline idea

Energy Minister Miriam Dalli does not believe Malta needs to consider building an electricity interconnector or gas pipeline to North Africa, contrary to views expressed by Joseph Muscat.

"Italy already has pipelines with Algeria and the East Adriatic through Sicily and its southern region of Puglia, so when we will be sourcing energy from Sicily with the second interconnector, we will naturally be tapping into these energy sources as well," she told Times of Malta.

She was speaking during a news conference at the Labour Party headquarters on Tuesday.

In an opinion piece on Times of Malta on Saturday, former prime minister Muscat said that existing plans to build a second interconnector and gas pipeline linking Malta and Italy will do nothing to reduce Malta's energy dependency on Russia.

Muscat's argument hinges on the fact that Italy and other European partners depend on Russia for around 43 per cent of their energy requirements. 

His opinion piece came a few days after Energy Minister Dalli gave an assurance that Malta is not dependent on Russian gas.

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