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Romania boosts Black Sea as energy transit region for EU
AFP
BERLIN
Petroleumworld.com 11 24 06
The Black Sea countries could become a key alternative transit route for energy to the European Union, Romanian Foreign Minister Mihai-Razvan Ungureanu said Thursday.
"(The Black Sea region) is the only geographic zone in Europe where there is a chance to set up alternative flows of energy," he told reporters after talks with his German counterpart Frank-Walter Steinmeier.
"This means that the interest in the Black Sea at the same time represents an interest in the security of this zone. We support in this context a common foreign policy that should be at the same time pragmatic and visionary."
Germany will assume the presidency of the European Union in January, when Romania and Bulgaria become the newest members of the bloc.
Ungureanu said that Romania backed efforts to bolster cooperation with countries bordering the EU that are not in line to accede, as Steinmeier welcomed assistance in reaching out to the region.
"Romania can offer its help in strengthening European cooperation policy with the countries of the Black Sea," Ungureanu said.
Germany's power-sharing government has made energy security strategy one of the pillars of its foreign policy.
Romanian President Traian Basescu noted this month that simmering conflicts in regions such as Transdnestr in Moldova and the breakaway Georgian provinces of Abkhazia and South Ossetia posed potential threats to the EU's gas supply.
Bucharest and Sofia are actively involved in the Nabucco pipeline project for channeling natural gas from fields in Iran and Azerbaijan through Turkey, Bulgaria and Romania to EU members Hungary and Austria.
Meanwhile oil pipelines are in the works, including the long-stalled Burgas-Alexandroupolis project linking the Caspian and the Aegean Seas via the Black Sea, and the Burgas-Vlore project between the Black and Adriatic Seas.
AFP 23 1651 GMT 11 06
Copyright© 2006 AFP. All Rights Reserved.
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