Energy: European Commission to build on the successful regional gas cooperation in Central and South Eastern Europe

On 9 September, Commission Vice-President for Energy Union Maroš Šefčovič and Commissioner for Climate Action and Energy Miguel Arias Cañete will travel to Budapest to further build on the successful work of the Central Eastern and South-Eastern European Gas Connectivity (CESEC) High Level Group. Ministers of 15 European Member States and Energy Community countries as well as of contracting parties will discuss progress achieved on the implementation of cross-border gas links as well as on actions allowing for the creation of a liquid gas market in the region. In order for the countries to fully benefit from the potential of the region, the meeting will also see a discussion on the possibility to broaden the regional energy cooperation to other areas such as electricity, renewables and energy efficiency. Vice-President Šefčovič said: “Our energy diplomacy is bearing fruit in allowing new sources of energy to arrive on Europe’s shores from the Caspian Sea, East Mediterranean or the emerging global LNG market. But in order to harvest these fruits, we must prepare our internal market to distributing the new sources across borders. CESEC has proven instrumental in the process of integration the region’s gas markets and has thus become a central channel for further integration across the energy sector.” Commissioner Arias Cañete said: “The success of this Commission initiative shows that the regional approach works if underpinned by high level political commitment by Member States and a clear roadmap. While we celebrate the achievements in building the missing gas links between countries, we will also look for new horizons and take our cooperation to new areas such as integrating electricity markets and boosting efficiency and renewables in the CESEC region.” Since its launch by the Commission in 2015, the CESEC Initiative has already resulted in rapid development of the infrastructure in the region and implementation of EU market rules which help ensure fairer prices for consumers and efficient functioning of competitive energy markets. The Energy Union aims at guaranteeing that all countries in Central and South East Europe will have access to at least three different sources of energy in the future, and works intensively to make sure that all countries in the regions are well interconnected to the rest of Europe.