Gas crisis, Romania's priorities are main focus of Barroso-Basescu-Boc meeting

Gas crisis, Romania's priorities are main focus of Barroso-Basescu-Boc meeting

Bucharest, Jan 12 /Agerpres/ - Romanian President Traian Basescu and Prime Minister Emil Boc paid a visit to Brussels on Monday on an invitation from European Commission President Jose Manuel Durao Barroso meant to discuss issues of utmost topicality on the European agenda, mainly measures to ease the economic crisis and the energy security issue, notably amid the latest developments in the supply and transit of Russian natural gas to Europe.

Basescu and Boc attended a working lunch with Barroso. The two Romanian officials were accompanied in Brussels by an official delegation made up from Vice-Premier Dan Nica, Foreign Minister Cristian Diaconescu, Economy Minister Adriean Videanu, State Secretary at the European Affairs Department Vasile Puscas and chief of the Romanian Permanent Representative Office at the European Union Mihnea Motoc.

After the talks, Barroso, Basescu and Boc gave a joint news conference in which they presented the conclusions reached at the meeting.

President Basescu stressed Romania backs the creation of alternate projects that should guarantee the energy supply to the EU member states and said Romania is particularly interested in the system for the connection to the gas transport infrastructure of Hungary.

'We tackled the energy issue and Romania unreservedly backs the creation of alternate projects that should guarantee the energy supply to the EU member states. Also, Romania will be a support of the projects put forward by the Commission, notably those related to the inter-connection of the gas transport networks', Basescu said.

Barroso, in turn, said the gas issue has a very strong impact on Europe and added the disagreement between Russia and Ukraine 'has gone too far'. 'This crisis between Russia and Ukraine has gone too far and we are doing everything possible, together with the EU Czech presidency, to resume the gas shipments to Europe', he stressed.

Given the gas crisis between Russia and Ukraine, the European Commission head stressed the EU should have a common energy policy and curb the dependence on fossil fuel. 'Furthermore, we should link the European Union countries in terms of energy', he said, adding that other alternatives should also be considered, such as the Nabucco gas pipeline project.

On the other hand, President Basescu said Romania continues to believe Russia is an 'inevitable' partner of the EU and therefore diplomacy resources should be found and 'sometimes patience resources even' so that the partnership with Russia may be achieved.

Basescu stressed Romania had been in no difficulty since the gas crisis began and it cannot be in difficulty in the period ahead.

The meeting that the EC president had with the Romanian leader and with the prime minister was also an opportunity to discuss Romania's priorities in 2009.

'Romania has a crucial role to play in the region and in entire Europe', Barroso said; he underscored Romania has been a very active EU member ever since joining the bloc. 'Expectations are very high and there is a lot of work to do. The environment is growing increasingly stable and the stability given by a majority ruling coalition can make the reforms go faster', he said.

Barroso said he and Basescu discussed about the ways to improve the capacity for the absorption of the structural funds as well as about the importance of a prudent fiscal policy in Romania.

'We discussed about how we can work together in order to cope with the economic crisis. We discussed about the importance of a prudent fiscal policy in Romania. Together we had a look at the manner in which we might use the European funds judiciously. We must improve the capacity for the administration of the structural funds', he said.

The head of the European executive praised the Romanian president's support for the proposal to mobilise, in the EU, another 5 billion euros in investment funds, particularly for the energy inter-connectivity.

'We proposed this measure so as to show that the European answer is not a sum of separate national answers, but we speak of common energy inter-connectivity projects and I can assure the president and the prime minister that the money for these projects will not be taken from structural funds or from the farming funds aimed for Romania. In fact, we'll save money from the budget, money that will be allotted to these European energy projects', Barroso underscored.

He remarked that Romania has been capable of proving it can meet its European commitments, but added the European Union awaits concrete results of the judiciary reform.

'I have noticed Romania has been capable of persuading the EC it can meet the commitments made when it entered the EU. President Basescu is personally committed to this fight and we hope to see more complete results in future. Romania has a crucial role to play in the region and in Europe in general. It is very important to be able to see not only that we bring concrete benefits to the Romanian citizens, but that we can also bring a visible and very active contribution from Romania to our common European projects', Barroso added.

Basescu pointed out that Romania's goal is to modify the legislation and adjust it both to the reaction of the European Commission, 'which now becomes very fast in approving the projects' and to the realities of the crisis. He said he discussed with Barroso about the possible existence of a corresponding element between the Romanian laws and the European Commission's action to cut the time of the assessment of the projects submitted by Romania from 86 days to 30 days. Such corresponding element in the Romanian legislation should enable Bucharest to shorten the implementation time from more than 90 days down to some 30 days, he stressed.

On the justice sector, Prime Minister Boc said Romania's goal is to lift the monitoring conducted by the European Commission in 2009. 'Romania must become a genuine EU member by the internal moves we are going to make, firstly in order to eliminate any interference of the political factors in the justice act and on the other hand in order to promote those normative acts that should further guarantee the independence of the judiciary', Boc said.

The Romanian prime minister announced he got the EC president's confirmation related to a decision by which the value of the advance payment Romania gets from the structural funds has been raised to 4 percent from 2 percent.

'There are three stages in the process of the assignment of structural funds to the member states as follows: the advance payment, the intermediate payments and the final payment. The advance payment has been raised to 4 percent from 2 percent, so that the advance payment Romania should have got in 2009 was 515 million euros and now it is 768 million euros. Therefore the domestic levers we have made available will be aimed to making very good use of this capacity of the absorption of the EU funds', Boc explained.

[Source: Romanian National News Agency AGERPRES