Brussels, 13/10/2015 (Agence Europe) - On Monday 12 October, Moldova officially joined the pan-European initiative to integrate the gas markets in central and eastern Europe. This initiative was set up by the Central-Eastern and South-Eastern Connectivity (CESEC).
On Monday, the Moldovan Prime Minister, Valeriu Strelet, in the presence of the Commissioner for Energy Union, Maroš Šefèoviè, signed the Memorandum of Understanding. This agreement was signed on 10 July in Dubrovnik and seeks to develop a joint approach to meeting the challenges of gas diversification and supplies in central, eastern and south-eastern Europe (see EUROPE 11356).
This cooperation agreement also aims to more swiftly tackle connection shortcomings affecting gas infrastructure in the countries in this region, as well as remove technical and regulatory obstacles, in an effort to create an integrated gas market and subsequently make the energy supplies in the region more secure.
This initiative includes the nine EU member state stakeholders in CESEC (Austria, Bulgaria, Croatia, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Romania, Slovenia and Slovakia) set up by the Commission last February (see EUROPE 11249), in addition to member countries of the Energy Community (Albania, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Serbia, Ukraine and now, Macedonia, which will be joined at a later stage, by Bosnia-Herzegovina).
The joint work planned in the context of this initiative and drawn up in an action plan, will focus on the construction of new infrastructure (LNG terminals, Southern Gas Corridor connections, the development of offshore reserves in the Eastern Mediterranean and Black Sea), particularly between Bulgaria and its neighbouring countries and better use of existing infrastructure.
CESEC's initial objective was for each of the stakeholders to have access to at least three different sources of gas supplies.
The CESEC was set up after the abandonment of the Russia South Stream gas pipeline project that sought to connect Russia up under the Black Sea to south-east Europe in December 2014. (Original version in French by Emmanuel Hagry)