Energy expert Brenda Schaffer interprets the EastMed pipeline (forecasted to be able to cater to 10% of Europe's gas needs, and decrease reliance on Russia) as a joint attempt to exclude Turkey from the "Club Med" gas club, and the decision to sign the pipeline accord was taken in response to the Turkish-GNA deal. Greece–Italy EEZ agreement On 9 June 2020, and in response to Turkey's moves in the region, Greece and Italy signed through their Foreign Ministers Nikos Dendias and Luigi Di Maio a "historic" agreement for the demarcation of the EEZ between the two countries. The agreement confirms the full rights of islands to their continental shelf and EEZ, in line with the UNCLOS. It uses the median line that was used for the 1977 Italy-Greece continental shelf demarcation agreement as the basis of the EEZ boundary. In the mutually agreed minor adjustments, part of the EEZ of the small Greek islands of Strofades, Othoni, and Mathraki was traded off for an equal area elsewhere (i.e. part of the EEZ of Italy's Calabria). According to Dendias, this creates an extremely favorable legal precedent for Greece in its dispute with Turkey. The United States, the Libyan House of Representatives, and the LNA led by Halifa Haftar, welcomed the EEZ agreement between Greece and Italy, with the US calling it "exemplary" and "an example of how these things should be done [in the region]", while reiterating their opposition to the Turkey-GNA EEZ agreement. Following the agreement, the Libyan House of Representatives sent an official invitation to the Hellenic Parliament for a similar EEZ agreement to be reached between Libya and Greece too, with talks beginning on 1 July. Dendias stated that Libyan-Greek talks are "not within the arbitrariness that so-called Sarraj-Turkey memorandum is constituting", but within the framework of UNCLOS and in continuation of the 2010 talks between the two countries. In this context, a committee of experts is formed by the President of the Libyan Parliament, Aguila Saleh. The LNA published a map with the proposed EEZ boundaries between Libya and Greece, in which Libya fully acknowledges the Greek islands' rights to their continental shelf and EEZ. Furthermore, on 18 June, a high-level delegation from Greece visited Egypt to negotiate and sign an agreement demarcating the Egyptian-Greek EEZ as well. In July 2020, France and Austria have called for sanctions against Turkey, such as the termination of the Turkey's