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Greece Sets Up Commissions to Promote the Burgas-Alexandroupolis Project

04.03.2010 | RIA Novosti | Greece supports the earliest implementation of the project to build the Trans-Balkan Burgas-Alexandroupolis oil pipeline and intends to promote the relevant Host State Agreement, said the Greek Minister for the Environment, Energy and Climatic Change Tina Birbili on Thursday.

"To implement the schedule set by the Prime-Minister (G.Papandreou) the Government will shortly set up two inter-ministerial commissions to monitor project implementation and negotiations on the Host State Agreement with the international consortium", - said Ms. Birbili, reports the Athens news agency from Thessaloniki.

In an interview for the RIA Novosti news agency in February the Greek Premier G.Papandreou expressed the view that the construction of the pipeline may begin as soon as the summer of 2010. According to the official, the institutional framework, including the assessment of the impact of the pipeline on the environment and the Host State Agreement should be finalized within the next six months, and construction can begin right after that.

The Burgas-Alexandroupolis oil pipeline, almost 300 km long, which brings together in a single project Russia, Greece and Bulgaria, is designed to ship by land oil from the Black Sea to the Aegean Sea in order to relieve the congestion in the Black Sea Straits. However there is a difference of opinion between the partners and the Bulgarian party to the project, which insists on enhancing the environmental efficiency of the project and would like to change its economic model.

Greece signed an Intergovernmental Agreement with Bulgaria and Russia to build the Trans-Balkan pipeline in 2007.