During a meeting held in Zagreb (Croatia) last week, as part of the “Process of cooperation for South-East Europe” – in which Macedonia, Serbia-Montenegro, Bulgaria, Romania, Turkey, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, Greece and Moldova participate, together with the European Union – the European Commissioner for Energy Andris Piebalgs signed a joint ministerial Declaration relating to the next stages of the construction of the PEOP (Pan-European Oil Pipeline) that will transport petroleum coming from the Black Sea directly to the markets of Central Europe. PEOP will link the Romanian port of Costanza with the Italian infrastructures of Trieste, avoiding the feared-for increase of maritime petroleum traffic and thus reducing the risk of accidents, and oil spillages, in the Sea of Marmora/Strait of Bosporus, the Aegean and Adriatic. The strategic importance of the PEOP for the energy provisioning of the EU is linked to the fact that for the first time it provides a system of pipelines linked with the European continental network: thus from the port of Trieste the oil will be transported northwards to Austria, Germany and the Czech Republic, with indirect benefit not only for hundreds of millions of consumers, but also for the other countries that are producers and exporters of natural gas such as Russia, the Regions of the Caspian and the States of Central Asia.
