English

Dear Mr Chairman,the Deputies General, Mr Professor Mavrakis, Dear Friends and Colleagues, I wholeheartedly thank you for giving me the floor today with hopefully an efficient system of transmission.

I first have to apologise to you all for having failed you by not being present today in Istanbul when I had told Professor Mavrakis that I would attend. Please understand that it is really force majeure.

This workshop is important and takes place at a moment when so much can actually take place between Europe and the Black Sea region indeed the wider Black Sea region thanks to the enhanced European Neighbourhood Policy and the new 7th Framework Programme.

On January 1, 2007 two Black Sea littoral states have acceded to the European Union. The EU is taking its place at the heart of a region undergoing rapid and complex transformation. More than ever before, the prosperity, stability and security of our neighbours around the Black Sea are of immediate concern for the EU.

The European Union has already developed close relations with all the countries of the region. Convergence with the values that govern these relations is coming forward as an essential component of a shared regional identity. Complementing the bilateral efforts, regional cooperation has also been gradually taking root. The moment has come for increased European Union involvement in further defining cooperation priorities and mechanisms at the regional level. There are important opportunities and challenges in the Black Sea area that require action at the regional level. These include issues of energy security, transport and environment, all of primary importance.

Given the confluence of different cultures in the Black Sea area, growing regional cooperation with substantial long-term EU involvement could also have beneficial effects beyond the region itself.

The Commission's recent Communication on Strengthening the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) stated that Black Sea Synergy, a new regional policy approach, should become an essential part of the ENP It is not the Commission's intention to propose an independent Black Sea strategy, since the broad EU policy is already set out in the ENP, the enlargement process and the Strategic Partnership with Russia.

The further evolution and the largely bilateral implementation of these policies will continue to determine the strategic framework of EU interaction with the countries of the Black Sea region. What is needed is an additional initiative that could complement these policies at the regional level. The primary focus of Black Sea Synergy would therefore be the development of regional cooperation within the Black Sea region and also between the region as a whole and the European Union.

The first eighteen months of implementation of the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) have laid a substantial foundation for strengthened relations between the Union and its neighbours. We have a single policy framework, ENP Action Plans with our partners establishing concrete mutual commitments and an enhanced and productive dialogue with our partners although with you this process started more recently.

We also have a new financial instrument the ENPI that will significantly improve the quality of our assistance and provide more funds to support our partners' reforms. The premise of the European Neighbourhood Policy is that the EU has a vital interest in seeing greater economic development and stability and better governance in its neighbourhood. The responsibility for this lies primarily with you the countries of the region, but the EU can substantially encourage and support your reform efforts. It is therefore in the best mutual interest of both the EU and you our neighbours to build a much stronger and deeper relationship.

We have improved trade and investment prospects, we shall make people-to-people contacts and legitimate short-term travel easier, we shall open more possibilities to mobilise funding. The EU will help you the countries willing to reform to do this faster, better and at a lower cost to your citizens.

The Black Sea region is one of the key production and transit routes for energy resources to the EU. Black Sea states and the EU all have a major stake in ensuring its reliable, safe and secure functioning. The area is important for the EU's external energy strategy, in particular in increasing energy security through the provision of additional energy sources and routes of supply.

The Commission will continue to enhance its relations with energy producers, transit countries and consumers in a dialogue on the security of supply.

This dialogue would also promote legal and regulatory harmonization through the Baku Initiative and in the framework of the ENP, the EU-Russia Energy Dialogue, the Memorandum of Understanding with the Ukraine, Azerbaijan and, where appropriate, via bilateral energy agreements. The objective is to provide a clear, transparent and non-discriminatory framework, in line with the EU acquis, for energy production, transport and transit. The dialogue would also serve to enhance regional energy stability through the upgrading of existing and the construction of new energy infrastructure. The growing quantities of oil transiting the Black Sea and the Bosphorus have led to increasing safety and environmental concerns. As a result, a number of bypass projects are currently under consideration.

In parallel, the Commission is developing, in cooperation with its partners, a new trans-Caspian trans-Black Sea energy corridor. This corridor will include several technical options for additional gas exports from Central Asia through the Black Sea to the EU, reinforcing the role of the Black Sea region as a major energy transit route. This is precisely why this workshop is so important and could have far reaching effects. This workshop is part of a 6 FP funded project and you will not be surprised to know how pleased we are in the Commission to be instrumental in harnessing sound science for responsible policy making in such an important and strategic area .

The countries of the Black Sea Region represent a considerable potential in terms of Science and Technology (S&T). Efforts to consolidate their potential and to establish stronger links with the scientific community of the EU were spearheaded by the INCO Programme of the 6th Framework Programme for Science, Technology and Development (2002-2006) and aimed at the candidate countries Bulgaria, Romania and Turkey as well as countries of the former Soviet Union. They included additional and substantial cooperation with the latter, particularly through the INTAS programme which focused on cooperation between the EU and Eastern Europe and Central Asia. In September 2005, the Ministers of countries that belong to BSEC adopted a 'BSEC Action Plan on cooperation in science and technology' developed, with European help, for a 4 years period. It aims at enhancing S&T cooperation among the countries as well as between BSEC and the EU. The Commission participates in all S&T Working Group meetings to assist in the implementation of the Action Plan.

FP7 has a longer duration, a higher budget (more than 52 billion Euros), a willingness to take risks, a greater simplification and many other benefits. The 7th FP for research covers during a 7 year span from the years 2007 to 2013 all the main areas of research which have the clearest impact on economic and industrial competitiveness as well as addressing the needs of societies and global issues: genomics and medical research, biotechnologies, nanotechnologies and information technologies, sustainable economic development with environment, energy, transports, space.

FP7 highlights the value of more cooperation. International cooperation and horizontal cooperation across thematic priorities and disciplines have been reinforced and mainstreamed in the programme. We need more cooperation in Europe and beyond. FP7 ensures that as many countries as possible can take part, for mutual benefit.

The expectations on FP7 are very high and so they should be. After all, the 7th Framework Programme is the biggest single publicly-funded multilateral research programme which is open to the world and in particular to research entities from the Neighbourhood Countries from the South Caucasus. Not only is it open, it offers unparalleled support for the participation of your research entities.

In order to achieve this goal we need to organise in a systematic fashion a thorough thematically oriented policy dialogue between our scientific communities and research policy makers. The organisation of thematic workshops for the countries of the Black Sea Region at the level of experts and scientists such as the ones organised in October and November 2006 for the Food, Energy and Environment key Priorities is to be considered an important milestone in the organisation of such a dialogue with your region as they created an atmosphere of trust and the conditions for a more systematic political momentum.

Following the meetings of these thematic workshops, a few topics of direct and mutual interest will most likely be included in the FP7 revised work programmes for the 2008 calls.One is already included in the Food Priority under the current open call. Some of these topics will be dealt with through the so called "targeted opening up" approach, in which the participation of research entities from different selected countries including, for instance, from the Black Sea region is recommended.

Others will be dealt with through the so called Specific International Cooperation Activities (SICA), a novelty of the 7th Framework Programme, in which the participation of research entities from different selected countries including, for instance, from the Black sea Region is required. These SICAs aim to address the specific needs of these targeted countries for mutual interest.

In the case of the Black Sea region, our choice of SICAs will be determined inter alia by the need to harness science and scientific cooperation in order:

- to facilitate the implementation of the EU-Neighbourhood Countries Action Plans (which aim to give you a stake in our single market, amongst other through more common and harmonised legislation, standards, regulations, etc..);

- to address jointly some pressing global issues for which a joint Black sea Region-EU research is key (environmental issues, CO2 sequestration, energy cooperation, etc.);

- to benefit from joint expertise for particular research topics (for instance in the Food, Agriculture & Biotechnology priority or the Health priority).

This bilateral project-led research cooperation between the EU and its Neighbourhood Partners of the Black Sea region is politically important. It has to be seen as the most ambitious and strategic type of cooperation we wish to develop.

It marries the two fundamental bottom up and top down approaches. It highlights the joint scientific responsibility taken by the partners. We are prepared to go the extra mile to develop substantially and visibly this approach.

The European Union is a world leader in the generation of scientific knowledge. The neighbourhood countries are part of the geography of Europe and together by harnessing all the necessary potential, scientific, financial and human resources to carry out high level research in an efficient and innovative manner we can become stronger and address more fully the needs of our societies as well as the need for a reinforced sustainable and more equitable economic development.

The new era opened by the EU Neighbourhood policy as well as by the 7th Framework Programme bode well for our future ambitious agenda. In particular, I hope that we will together succeed to put in place the necessary mechanisms that will allow us to organise a more common decision-shaping process which will lead to a more shared research agenda and enable us to launch and to conduct joint initiatives in order to pool and jointly exploit our great intellectual resources for our common benefit.

I am pleased that through ICBSS we can expect a well prepared proposal for such a Dialogue Process. known as the INCONET. The association of all the Black Sea Region countries and beyond and the EU in a wider European Research Area carries a great potential through an appropriate scientific critical mass and highlights the strategic perspective of this cooperation, based on the exchange and joint production of knowledge for the benefit of our societies and based on the same view on the r?le of science which we as a world power have to harness jointly with you in order to address global issues in a responsible fashion.

I thank you for your attention.