Your Excellencies,
Distinguished guests,
Ladies and Gentlemen,

First of all, I would like to express my appreciation to Prime-minister Gordon Bajnai for the excellent initiative of convening this Summit. The high level participation confirms once again the commitment of all our countries to further develop regional and EU cooperation, as an important instrument for tackling today’s regional and global challenges.

The global economic crisis seriously affected the energy sector, causing investments to plunge, in a harsher financing environment. Particularly the oil and gas sector has been faced with a steady stream of announcements of cutbacks in capital spending, project delays, mainly as a result of the crisis.

Under these challenging circumstances, we need to identify real win-win opportunities for the energy sector and work together to fruitfully exploit them. We must also take into consideration employment, a key objective for us in the context of economic revival plans.

Last year’s gas crisis reminded us once again of the fragility of energy supply at the European level, especially in Central and South-East Europe. The need for steps to increase European energy security, including an appropriate mechanism for (EU) anticipation and reaction, is pressing. The core principle at the basis of such measures should be solidarity.

Of course, each state is in the first instance responsible for its own security, but in the current economic and geopolitical context, solidarity with neighboring states is an indispensable feature of energy policies. Only thus we can have more energy security at a regional level. For historical and economic reasons countries from Central and South-East Europe need more coordination among themselves and also more support at the EU level.

Ladies and gentlemen,

We have set three major objectives in our national Energy Strategy for 2007-2020: energy security through diversification, sustainable development by improving energy efficiency and developing renewable energy sources and promoting competitiveness through a fully liberalized energy market.

In the oil and gas sector, Romania's vision of a more secure long term energy future is centered upon the diversification of both energy sources and routes.

Against this background and considering our position in the Black Sea basin, Romania’s natural choice is to consistently promote the development of the energy transit corridor that links the Caspian and Middle East resources to the European market, namely the Southern Corridor.

Projects such as Nabucco, the Pan European Oil Pipeline (PEOP) and the direct transportation of energy resources across the Black Sea or the extension of interconnections with neighboring countries will increase not only Romania’s energy security, but the energy security of the whole region.

We have addressed these options in our intensified dialogue with producer countries along the Southern Corridor, while focusing our efforts on the development of Nabucco, the backbone project of this energy transit route.

Nabucco is a viable project, founded on firm economic and commercial grounds, with compelling arguments to be completed on schedule. 2009 brought major developments, culminating in the signing of the Nabucco Agreement, in Ankara, on July 13. We should build on this success by focusing our efforts in the months to come on having producers committed to supplying this pipeline and having the appropriate investment decision taken.

At the same time, Romania recently stepped up its efforts to develop energy cooperation with the Caucasus countries by signing two inter-ministerial agreements with Georgia and Azerbaijan, opening the way for a trilateral cooperation in the field of energy.

Another important objective of Romania’s energy strategy is to extend the interconnections between our energy systems and those of neighboring countries, in the gas and electricity fields. In the context, I welcome the good proceeding of our gas interconnection with Hungary.

Ladies and gentlemen,

I am confident that continuing to work closely together in regional cooperation is the way ahead in addressing the common concern of energy security. Pragmatism and viable common projects as well as mutual support based on trust and solidarity should be our driving principles. We need further coordination among ourselves in order to have our interests properly advanced.