DESERTEC is a promising opportunity - By Friedbert Pflüger

It may sound incredible but it is true. A group of top German companies including Deutsche Bank, Siemens, E.ON, RWE and Schott are planning to spend ?400 billion over the next 20 years to meet about 15 percent of Europe's energy needs by producing renewable energy in northern Africa. On July 13, company representatives meeting in Munich established the DESERTEC consortium. It aims to build gigantic solar farms in the Sahara Desert and to construct power grids to transport solar power to Europe.

The project has enormous economic and ecological ramifications. It makes sense in times of proven climate change; it fosters Germany and Europe as a leading market in environmental technology and - given the volatility of fossil fuel prices - it is an investment that will certainly pay off in the long run.

However, DESERTEC cannot be allowed to look like solar imperialism. Countries like Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco have to be brought into the consultation process first. It is they who must decide whether Europe can feed its hunger for energy with Saharan sun - not the companies sitting together in Munich.

Last but not least, DESERTEC only makes sense if it fits with regional needs in North Africa. Most of the energy produced should be consumed in the region. The project can only succeed if it has political and diplomatic support from the outset.

Nor should DESERTEC be conceived as a German project. It should be European from the word go. So the first step should be to get the French on board, especially when it comes to dealing with Africa.

Chancellor Angela Merkel - who favors prolonged use of nuclear power plants in Germany - has also embraced the Sahara project. She is well aware that a broad energy mix will be necessary to meet the needs of tomorrow. As long as DESERTEC does not become an ideologically driven, anti-nuclear project run by Germany, it is likely to get backing from Paris.

That is essential because the German consortium will never be able to shoulder the enormous diplomatic and political workload necessary to make the project become reality. The consortium is in desperate need of political support in Europe and coordination from Brussels.

And why not bring in the Chinese or the Indians? Both countries badly need new energy sources to meet their goals and the expectations of their citizens. Why should they not get a share in solar big business?

Europe's security needs can best be met if a variety of sources provide energy from different parts of the world. That way, no single country or region can use energy as a weapon with which to achieve its foreign policy goals. And competition makes for better consumer prices than energy monopolies do.

So DESERTEC will have to be constructed in a way that does not substitute one dependency with another. What the project needs is a super-grid with feeders into Europe via Egypt, Jordan, Israel, Syria and Turkey, via Algeria, Tunisia and Italy as well as via Morocco, Spain and France. That way we can minimize the dangers of political turmoil and moves to exert pressure by cutting off supplies.

Within this framework, there will also be the opportunity to feed the grid also from other sources such as windpower - an excellent alternative on the Red Sea and in Morocco - or from biomass incineration and hydroelectricity. DESERTEC, with its North African super-grid could produce safe energy, become a cornerstone of the battle against climate change and transform Europe's unstable neighboring region into an area of peaceful cooperation. The vision is there. Now it needs concrete European action to turn it into reality.

- Friedbert Pflüger is visiting professor of international relations at Embry Riddle University, Daytona Beach (Berlin campus) and member of the CDU's executive board in Germany. From 2005 to 2006, he was a deputy minister in the German Ministry of Defense.