SOFIA – Secretary General of the Regional Cooperation Council (RCC) Goran Svilanovic has said that South East Europe needs to create a well-functioning energy market to provide affordable but cost-reflective and reliable supplies in the region.
Svilanovic opened a two-day conference on energy security and energy infrastructure in South East Europe, organized by Bulgaria as chair country of the South-East European Cooperation Process (SEECP), in Sofia Tuesday.
Addressing the participants, Svilanovic expressed the hope that the SEE economies would join the Energy Union even before becoming EU member-states, the RCC said in a release yesterday.
Warning that prospects for growth in the Western Balkans region have significantly deteriorated recently, Svilanovic said South East Europe needs to identify its priorities in the energy sector in order to be able to fuel its growth by 2020.
To achieve that, Svilanovic stressed, the region needed to focus on developing and implementing measures to increase efficient use of energy and renewable energy sources and to encourage investment in energy infrastructure.