During yesterday's meeting with the President of Turkey Abdullah Gul, the President of Romania Traian Basescu insisted that Gaz de France should be part of the Nabucco project. The Romanian President promised to support Turkey's accession to the EU. President Gul was rather reticent and he just mentioned: "The Nabucco project is important to us. We hope it will be achieved as soon as possible. We are open to this project." The Romanian President explained after the meeting: "In our bilateral meeting we have talked about the participation of Gaz de France to this project and Turkey is to analyze the matter." The two officials also discussed about an older Romanian -Turkish project to achieve a submarine cable for energy transport to connect the two countries, given Romania's energy resources to be capitalized once with the 3 and 4 reactors in the Cernavoda power plant are accomplished. President Basescu argued as well: "Romania is going to be a constant supporter of Turkey's accession to the EU, once all requirements are met. I have also informed Mr. President Gul about Romania's full openness to provide staff to support the preparations for approaches to various fields subject to EU entry talks, issues related to energy, apart from the Nabucco project." The talks with President Sarkozy After his meeting with the President of France Nicolas Sarkozy one month ago, President Basescu announced that they agreed that Gaz de France would join the Nabucco project in exchange for Romania's support to this end. But the French company's candidacy was dismissed two days later, for the companies part of the Nabucco signed in Vienna a document by which the RWE German group became the sixth partner in the project aiming to build this gas pipe to cost 5 billion Euro, meant for the transport of natural gases from the Caspian region to Europe. Gaz de France announced presently that the company was ready to join the project if getting support. The company submitted an offer to join as the seventh partner. Turkey-France disputes The Ankara authorities opposed the idea that Gaz de France should become involved in Nabucco, for a reason such as the official recognition of the genocide in Armenia by France and President Sarkozy's opposition to Turkey's EU membership. The OMV (Austria), the MOL (Turkey), the Transgaz (Romania), the Bulgargaz (Bulgaria), the Bostas and the REW are part of the Nabucco consortiu. The Nabucco is to cross Turkey and the Balkan region to Austria, as a central element in the EU plan to dwindle Europe's dependence on the import of gas from Russia.

Anca HRIBAN