Romania's President Traian BASESCU during his opening speech at the international conference ‘The Black Sea area infrastructure development in the new Euro-Atlantic context’ Bucharest, Feb 17, 2006 – In his opening speech at the international conference ‘The Black Sea area infrastructure development in the new Euro-Atlantic context’ , organised by the Romanian Chamber of Commerce, President Traian Basescu said prosperity in the region would be reached only if overall significant changes are undertaken.
Mr. Basescu displayed satisfaction that one of Romania’s foreign policy priorities – i.e. co-operation in the Black Sea region – began to take shape. President Basescu said that, beyond some inherent diverging view points, the states in the region share a common interest as regarding the sustainable economic development.
Further on, Basescu said that Romania should act as a bridge between EU and NATO and the Black Sea countries. Having this in mind, Basescu announced an international summit (end of March, this year in Constantza) aimed to create the ‘Black Sea Euro-region’, under the auspices of Council of Europe’s ‘Congress of Local and Regional Powers’.
President Basescu said: “We all know that prosperity cannot come overnight. We strongly need to create the proper environment for the future prosperity of the people in this region. (…) but before speaking of prosperity we should take into account for these countries the capacity building in order to enable them develop modern infrastructures.”
President Basescu mentioned the need for integrating the energy network system in the region, together with the process of building a new road infrastructure and detecting new alternative solutions for supplying EU with energy – i.e. the ‘Nabucco project’ and the projected Constantza-Trieste pipeline.
Basescu added a third opportunity, namely the project for a liquefied gas terminal in Romania’s port of Constantza – to be built in co-operation with Qatar.
President Basescu formally invited the European countries interested in such a terminal to join Romania in finalizing this facility as soon as possible.
Further on, President Basescu addressed the ‘frozen conflicts’ issue in the Black Sea region – i.e. Transdniester, Ossetia, Chechnya, etc. He said that it’s easy, at a statement level, to invoke the ‘Kosovo solution’, but before reaching solid institutional and governance solutions in these conflict zones, some preliminary steps are to be undertaken – i.e. dismantling the paramilitary structures and foreign troops withdrawal.
President Basescu underlined that the EU solutions regarding frozen conflicts in the region would have to get the approval of both parties involved in such conflicts.
Basescu reminded the fact that Europe is both the major energy consumer and the main stability provider in the extended Black Sea region. “A just balance” should be reached as we take into account both the conflicts and the complementarities in the region, Basescu said and added: “We should be wise enough and not leave out anybody, we should start by having in mind that, at the end of the day, the main interest of the countries in the Black Sea region and in the ‘extended’ Black sea region is simply their own welfare. And this welfare can be reached but in peace and security.”
President Basescu also pointed out that Romania’s foreign policy somehow displayed a “shift towards the East” for better contributing to its Western allies’ stability and security.
While ending his speech, President Basescu underlined again that Romania could act as a bridge between EU/NATO member states and the countries in the region – a bridge needed by all parties geopolitically involved.
Romania Report
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