Brussels, 22/05/2003 (Agence Europe) - The 3rd Conference of Energy Ministers of the EU and of Mediterranean partner countries, which met on Tuesday and Wednesday in Athens, approved the programme of priority actions for the period 2003-2006 proposed by the Euro-Mediterranean Forum, a joint advisory structure on energy matters.
Commission Vice-President Loyola de Palacio, who took part at the session, stressed it is important to work together to set up a true, long-term Euro-Mediterranean partnership, for which it will be necessary to develop energy supply security, cooperation on technology and research, industrial competitiveness and the opening up of markets to competition as well as protection of the environment. Such cooperation, she said, provides "an essential framework for our partnership" along the lines of the new "neighbourhood" policy proposed by President Prodi. Ms de Palacio notes that the countries that are neighbours to the EU, including the Mediterranean countries, play a "capital role in the enlarged EU energy policy" and help to "meet a large part of the EU's needs in natural gas and, increasingly, in oil". She feels that "their importance will grow considerably in the future". They are also "essential partners for the transit of primary energy" toward the EU and will gradually become full players of equal importance on the internal EU gas and electricity market.
The action programme will be geared to developing infrastructures in integrated markets taken, initially, from the angle of subregional Maghreb and Mashrek cooperation. Thus, the interconnection of electricity networks will be promoted to create a Euro-Mediterranean electricity link. The same approach is true for the gas sector. The future integration of the Euro-Mediterranean market will be facilitated by the interconnection of networks between Turkey, Greece and Italy. The Commission hopes this infrastructure will be operational end 2005. It will also foster completion of the missing gas interconnections in order to complete the Mediterranean gas link. This interconnection will allow Mediterranean resources, from the Caspian Sea basin and the Middle East, to supply the Union's internal gas market, thus enlarged, as well as the Balkans region. The European Commission also published its choice of routes for oil pipelines in a dense network that should supply the whole of the Community territory. Ms de Palacio stressed that the importance of reducing the risks linked to oil transport by sea in the Mediterranean basin was acknowledged by all. The project has the main aim of avoiding environmental problems in the oil sector in the future, and the possibilities of using the Galileo satellite surveillance system for controlling the transport of hydrocarbons.
It was also decided that cooperation should be enhanced for better energy efficiency and energy savings, as well as the development of renewable energies.
In her speech in Athens, Ms de Palacio tackled the question of financing these projects, which should come, she said, as a priority from the private sector. The EU will intervene through the Euro-Mediterranean Facility for Investment in Petroleum (FEMIP) managed by the EIB. She does, however, blame the fact that some major projects of a regional or bilateral kind are "penalised by high interest rates on loans imposed on private companies along the southern shores of the Mediterranean because of the surcharge linked to non-commercial risks". The Commission, she said, "has begun discussing the subject with the EIB". The Bank has already set in place a regional venture capital fund with other partners, called "Averroès Finance", which could help companies to offset the difficulties of gaining access to different financial products.