7-8 November 2006

The third meeting in 2006 of the 4 Working Groups (WG) of the ‘Baku Initiative’ took place in Brussels on 7-8 November 2006 with the objective to finalise the draft Benchmarking, Rehabilitation, Sustainable Development and Investments Reports as well as the draft Road Map and to discuss the draft Conclusions of the forthcoming Ministerial Conference to be held on 30 November 2006.

Once again over 65 participants attended the 2^nd Working Group Meeting namely, 

• Ministers of Energy of involved countries from Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Turkey and Russian Federation as observer
• Advisors / Experts to the Ministers of Energy of involved countries
• Representatives of the European Commission – DG RELEX, DG TREN, EuropeAid

Parallel sessions were held between the Working Group Members and the European Commission representatives whereby the EU Experts from the INOGATE Technical Secretariat presented an overview of each of the (4) working group reports (i.e. benchmarking, rehabilitation, sustainable development, and investments attraction) including a brief overview of the objectives, the procedures followed and the status regarding the material received from each WG members, the major results of the assessment, including an overview of the parameters assessed and the present status in each country and an overview of the proposed actions in general as well as briefly the priority areas of interventions per country. In addition a joint session of all working group members and country co-ordinators took place with the aim to discuss the draft conclusions to the forthcoming 2^nd Ministerial Conference including the draft Road Map outlining the activities to take place in 2007-2008.

One of the major highlights of this meeting is the comments brought forth by the representatives of the European Commission whereby they stressed the importance of energy efficiency and diversification of energy sources in the partner countries and that each country needs to adopt the institutional and legislative frameworks successfully implemented in the European Union such as the establishment of Energy Agencies, the development of ESCO, and the enforcement of the Kyoto Protocol mechanisms. These areas present potential cooperation opportunities among the EU and the partner countries.  

Upon completion of joint sessions of the working group members and parallel sessions of each of the working group, the following conclusions were brought forth:

• Endorsement of all working group reports by the partner countries, subject to taking into account all comments stated by each country;
• Agreement of the final draft text of the Conclusions to the 2^nd Ministerial Conference including the Road Map

For more information on the Working Groups results, please contact the INOGATE Secretariat:

INOGATE Technical Secretariat Kyiv

26/28 Koudriavska Str., Kyiv 04053, Ukraine

Tel: +380.44.2302754, Fax: +380.44.2302753

e-mail: secretariat.kiev@inogate.org