Brussels, 26/11/2004 (Agence Europe) - On Friday, Romania completed membership talks on two more chapters: "environment" and "miscellaneous". Two chapters ("justice and home affairs" and "competition") are still outstanding, but Romania's Chief Negotiator for EU membership, Vasile Puscas, told the press he was confident that talks would be fully completed by the European Council on 17 December, when European leaders hope to officially close membership talks with Bulgaria and Romania. As far as the "environment" chapter is concerned, Romania has negotiated a total of 11 transitional periods from 1 to 12 years, which concern the implementation of acquis in sectors such as urban waste water treatment and waste processing. Mr Puscas stressed that the transitional periods are justified by the enormous cost of investment - EUR 21 billion - that Romania should make in the next two decades to come into line with the EU's environmental legislation. Under the chapter "miscellaneous", Romania has negotiated an overall amount of EUR 559.8 million that it will receive from the EU between 2007-2009 as a contribution to the financing of external border protection ("Schengen Facility"). Like Bulgaria, Romania has had to accept the various safeguard clauses imposed by the EU, including the new "strengthened" clause, which will allow the EU to postpone its membership by one year if, on 31 December 2006, Bucharest has not transposed and implemented acquis communautaire for 1 January 2007 - the date envisaged for accession. On Friday, the EU and Romania also re-opened and re-closed the "energy" chapter to tackle the new European legislation adopted by the EU in 2003 (hence after the provisional closure of talks with Romania on this chapter) in the field of excise on energy products. Bucharest was thus able to negotiate seven additional transitional periods which brings to eleven the total number of transitional arrangements obtained in this field.