Athens News Agency: News in English, 05-10-25

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From: The Athens News Agency at <http://www.ana.gr/>

CONTENTS

[01] Treaty establishing SE Europe Energy Community signed in Athens - Last-minute refusal by Turkey

[02] Greek museum n Chicago

[03] Dalaras at Vienna Concert Hall

[04] EU programme for climate change

[01] Treaty establishing SE Europe Energy Community signed in Athens - Last-minute refusal by Turkey

EU-member Greece's prime minister Costas Karamanlis called the treaty a landmark in the course of the peoples of the region and a harbinger of new relations, as well as the springboard for wider economic cooperation, while EU Stability Pact special coordinator Erhard Busek said that 12.5 billion euros would be required in the coming years for investments in electricity production units in the region, and another 8 billion euros for power transport and distribution networks.

EU Commissioner for energy Andris Piebalgs said the treaty would lead to improvement of the safety of energy supply for the region as well as the EU, and created a common and firm environment for investments in energy production units and transport networks.

Greece's development minister Dimitris Sioufas hailed the treaty as a catalyst for improvement of the safety and adequacy of energy, the attraction of large-scale investments, reinforcement of the European prospects of the countries of the region, and improvement of the standard-of-living of the region's peoples.

The treaty was signed by British trade and industry minister Alan Johnson on behalf of the EU, whose rotating presidency Britain currently holds, and ministers from Albania, Bosnia, Bulgaria, Croatia, FYROM, Romania, and Serbia-Montenegro, while a UN representative signed on behalf of Kosovo. Turkey, which as also slated to sign the treaty, did not sign the accord, although its minister of energy and natural resources Hilmi Mehmet Guler was present at the signing ceremony.

Sioufas signed on behalf of Greece, which is one of the five EU member-states participating in the pact, along with Austria, Hungary, Slovenia and Italy.

The treaty establishing the Energy Community of Southeastern Europe aims to establish a single regulatory framework for trading power in the region and to ensure that countries in the region adopt EU single market regulations in energy and begin liberalising the market under those rules by 2008. None of the Balkan signatories are EU member states, although Bulgaria and Romania are slated to join in 2007.

The accord is an effort to create a stable regulatory environment that will boost energy investment in the region, while a series of planned natural gas pipelines connecting the entire region are also expected to help boost investment in the energy sector.

The Energy Community's regulatory and electricity board will be based in Athens, while its technical and information center will be based in Sofia, Bulgaria. Its secretariat will be headquartered in Vienna, Austria.

Meetings on natural gas development issues were initially planned to be held in Istanbul, Turkey, prior to Ankara's refusal on Tuesday to sign the pact.

The agreement is a follow-up to the Athens Memoranda signed in 2002 and 2003, which gave political backing for the idea to open the region's electricity and gas markets. Within this framework, SE European governments should adopt EU energy directives and environmental standars. It particularly obliges governments to create electricity regulators and transmission system operators and to open up the power and gas markets for commercial customers.

The Athens process, according to Commission sources, is consistent with the SE Europe countries' objective of joining the EU as soon as possible and presents them with the opportunity to become part of the EU single market in the area of electricity and gas as a first step towards that goal.

It is noted that the present-day 25-nation European Union sprang out of the energy agreement for the establishment of the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) that was signed in 1951 by six European countries.

[02] Greek museum n Chicago

Bakoyannis referred to the significance of preserving Greek traditions and heritage and passing it unto younger generations in a speech she gave during the ceremony.

During her visit to Chicago, Bakoyannis met with the city's mayor Richard Daley with whom she discussed further strengthening of cooperation between the twin cities of Greece and the US.

On Monday evening she was due to arrive in Washington where she will meet with US government officials, Washington's mayor Anthony Williams and members of Congress.

[03] Dalaras at Vienna Concert Hall

The roughly 2,000 people who turned up for the concert had the opportunity to listen to Dalaras perform some of the best-known 'rebetika' songs as well as to see singers Sofia Papazoglou and Melina Aslanidou perform.

The greater part of the concert was dedicated to the music and songs of Vassilis Tsitsanis, with the remainder featuring the songs of Markos Vamvakaris, Theodoros Derveniotis, Apostolos Kaldaras and others.

Saturday's concert was the third in the Hellenic Music Festival series which is being held in Vienna throughout October.

The four-concert series has been organised by the Greek embassy in the Austrian capital.

Dionyssis Savvopoulos will be performing on October 27.

[04] EU programme for climate change

The programme began in 2000 and refers to specific measures for dealing with unavoidable changes to the climate and the extreme weather phenomena that result.

It was created to help the EU meets the targets set in 1997 under the Kyoto Protocol, when the 15 EU member-states of that time undertook to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 8 percent up until the year 2012.

The programme seeks optimum solutions for reducing emissions of carbon dioxide and gases created by road transport and air travel. It also seeks to support research and development into new, environmentally-friendly technologies and to brief the general public on these targets.

Other speakers at the conference, attended by some 450 participants, included UK Minister of State for Climate Change Elliot Morley, members of the European Parliament and representatives of private firms and non-governmental organisations.

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