FT: Italy’s Renzi pivots to Africa for alternatives to Russian gas

A day after Vladimir Putin made his surprise move to scrap a grandiose pipeline that was to carry fresh supplies of Russian gas to Europe for generations to come, Matteo Renzi, the Italian prime minister, was in Algiers plotting a very different vision for Europe’s energy policy.

Standing beside his Algerian counterpart, Abdelmalek Sellal, in the windswept north Africa capital, Mr Renzi suggested on Monday the east-west pipelines that have for years nourished the continent’s energy demand would eventually be eclipsed.

“In the future the energy question will increasingly be [developed] in a north-south direction,” the 39-year-old prime minister told reporters, using his confident French. “And so the relationship with African countries will be very important.”
MORE