Energy officials from nine EU member states in the Mediterranean said on Monday they wanted to turn the region into a renewable energy hub and would pursue ways to facilitate cross-border projects.

Representatives of the MED9 group – Croatia, Cyprus, France, Greece, Italy, Malta, Portugal, Slovenia, and Spain – said they planned to conduct assessments of specific opportunities and challenges focused on turning the region into a green energy hub.

“We invite the European Commission to collaborate closely with us in undertaking this assessment, subject to resources availability,” energy ministers or their representatives said in a joint statement after meeting in Larnaca in Cyprus.

Cyprus and Greece on Saturday said they had agreed to cooperate on the creation of a subsea electricity cable linking continental Europe to Cyprus, easing the energy isolation of the island which still generates electricity primarily from carbon-belching heavy fuel oil. [Reuters]