SOFIA TO HOST GAS SUMMIT
PanARMENIAN.Net
31.03.2009 13:16 GMT+04:00
/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Bulgaria’s initiative to organize a summit on Natural
Gas for Europe Security and Partnership resulted from the intensified
dialogue between the Bulgarian President Georgi Parvanov, and heads
of state from the Caspian region and Central Asia for the past two
years, the press office of the Bulgarian Embassy told PanARMENIAN.Net.
Those discussions demonstrated that partnership between key producers,
transit countries, and consumers should be encouraged by meaningful
dialogue on the highest level involving all stakeholders.
Invitations to the Sofia Summit were extended to 28 countries from
South East Europe, the Black Sea region and the Caspian region,
Central Asia, European Union Member States that are directly involved
in the development of the Southern Gas Corridor, the USA, Russia,
the EU Presidency, and the European Commission.
The Sofia Summit to be held from April 24 and 25 will practically
follow up on the Second Strategic Energy Review debate with the
benefit of involving major present and future energy suppliers.
The goal of this Summit will be to engage EU’s major energy partners
in a dialogue on the EU energy security approach. Accordingly, EU
Member States will become aware of the political will of producers
and transit countries to satisfy their interests in line with the
proposed new EU Energy Security and Solidarity Action Plan.
Bulgaria would propose a discussion on the economic and political
context of EU’s growing natural gas needs. One topical task in this
context would be the development of what the EC refers to as the new
generation of energy interdependence provisions with the partners of
the European Union.
The business part of the Summit is planned to discuss trends,
principles, and policies to enhance Europe’s energy security, and
some natural gas projects that are key to the area of South Europe.