East Europe for more energy security: Hungary

(BUDAPEST) - Central and eastern European countries agreed Wednesday to set up a north-south-east gas supply system to ensure energy security in a region lacking its own resources.

"We signed a common declaration that states that energy security is a highly important task for the signatory states," Hungary's Premier Gordon Bajnai told journalists after a meeting of regional officials.

"We have reached an important step with today's meeting," he added.

The declaration called for a "North-South-East gas supply triangle" that would link the European pipeline project Nabucco in the east to two liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminals in Poland, in the north, and on the Croatian island of Krk in the south, Bajnai said.

In recent years, gas cuts due to price disputes between Russia and Ukraine have often left thousands freezing in eastern Europe and forced countries to draw on their own gas reserves, he noted.

"Then, we were able to help Bosnia and Serbia. Today we want to widen this cooperation," Bajnai said.

The planned gas pipelines were to link the Baltic and Adriatic seas, which would require "unprecedented cooperation not only between the institutions of the signatory states, but also between companies from the different states, as well as European funding."

The declaration was signed in Budapest by Visegrad countries -- Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia -- and seven other states: Austria, Bosnia-Hercegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Serbia, Slovenia and Romania.

These countries are poor in energy resources and are therefore keen to seek new supply routes.

According to Bajnai, the new energy projects could be completed in 2014 or 2015.