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The Government of the Republic of Serbia

In the service of citizens

Serbia’s energy community initiative a great developmental impetus for the Balkans

Brussels, 6 June 2006

Serbian Minister of Energy and Mining Radomir Naumov met today in Brussels with European Commissioner for Energy and Transport Andris Piebalgs and handed him over the initial text of the Framework Convention on Sustainable Energy Development in the Balkans.

Radomir Naumov and Andris Piebalgs

Author: FoNet

By launching this initiative, Serbia is becoming the initiator of new connection between Balkan countries through the energy sector, which gives the country a respectable position not only in the region but in Europe as it recognizes the great potential of this region in its stabilisation and EU integration process, the Ministry of Energy and Mining said in a statement.

The EU has determined the energy sector as cornerstone of Balkan EU integration. Serbia’s initiative to form a Balkan energy convention gives a strong impetus and also opens new possibilities of economic progress and social stability for Balkan states.

Piebalgs said in a press conference that the initiative of the Serbian Minister of Energy and Mining is a new opportunity for the EU to support Balkan states even more in implementation of the agreement on establishing the Energy Community of South East Europe (ECSEE) together with other Balkan countries, signed in October 2005 in Athens.

Apart from the initiative to form the Balkan Energy Community, Naumov also informed Piebalgs on activities conducted to ratify the agreement on the Energy Community. During Naumov's stay in Brussels, this international legal act entered parliamentary procedure and is expected to be ratified in the course of June, thus making Serbia the fifth state in the region to have ratified the agreement on the Energy Community.

This is of extreme importance for further strengthening of the region's EU integration process because the agreement will be effective and binding for all southeast European countries as soon as parliaments of six regional states ratify it. So far, it has not yet been ratified by Bosnia and Herzegovina, Romania, Bulgaria and Serbia.

During his meeting with Piebalgs, Naumov reiterated the importance of regional energy stability, as well as the stability of the entire European Union, and in this sense stressed the necessity of solving the issue of the humanitarian catastrophe from the energy point of view, which has been going on for two straight winters in Kosovo-Metohija.

Minister Naumov recalled that the constructive activities conducted by the Serbian government, Serbian Electric Power Industry and Electric Power Network, aimed at solving the issue of electricity restrictions is in the best interest of all residents in Kosovo.

Naumov said that energy need not and should not recognize either state or political borders, and especially not ethnic ones, adding that the prevalent factor in the 21st century must not be that of dividing but of bringing together peoples and ethnic communities. He recalled that the agreement on the Energy Community is also based on these principles, which is why an efficient role of the EU in this matter is of key importance.

The meeting was also an opportunity to stress the importance Serbia attributes to Nikola Tesla’s 150th birth anniversary and Naumov briefed Piebalgs on the activities that the Serbian government is organising so as to properly observe the birth anniversary of the great man to whom mankind will always be indebted.

Naumov therefore officially delivered Piebalgs an invitation to attend the main celebration of the jubilee to be held on June 10 in Belgrade, concludes the statement.