Iohannis: Romania is prepared to provide its own energy infrastructure to diversify natural gas supply

Romania is prepared to provide its own infrastructure to diversify the supply of natural gas from multiple sources, considering that the aim is to eliminate energy dependence on the Russian Federation, President Klaus Iohannis said on Thursday at the Cotroceni Presidential Palace after meeting with the Spanish Prime Minister, Pedro Sanchez."The impact of the crisis in Ukraine, from an energy standpoint, especially since we are facing a substantial increase in energy prices, even from before this crisis, is concerning us and we had an ample discussion with president Sanchez on this topic. The objective of ensuring energy security at the level of the European Union ends up having an important strategic importance. We formulated, during the informal meeting of the European Council in Versailles, which took place last week, a series of important decisions that target eliminating energy dependency from the Russian Federation. From the discussions that we had today it turns out that Romania and Spain have converging opinions regarding the importance that we grant to developing energy transport infrastructure, ensuring inter-connectivity between member states, increasing production and storage capacities. Romania is prepared to provide its own energy infrastructure so as to diversify supply of natural gas from multiple sources," the head of state said.He showed that the necessary measures for mitigating the impact of energy prices for European consumers will be discussed during the meeting of the European Council, which will take place next week."The measures taken at European level must also take into account the energy security of the Republic of Moldova and Ukraine. This is what I said today as well, because the two neighboring states need to directly benefit from our help. This means taking responsibility for solid and consistent actions in this direction," added President Iohannis.The head of state specified that the main topic of the meeting with the Spanish official was about the war in Ukraine and its deep implications, not only with regard to Euro-Atlantic security, but also in managing the humanitarian situation and developments in the field of energy."We have discussed all these aspects, including the preparations for the meetings of the European Council and the NATO Summit in Brussels, next week," Iohannis showed.The Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Spain, Pedro Sanchez, paid a visit in Romania on Thursday.