The South Eastern Europe must diversify away from Russian energy and this objective can be achieved through transatlantic cooperation on energy security and with the public support of the private sector investment.

„It’s vital that the partners in Washington and Brussels and Bucharest and elsewhere support this initiative as much as possible for the sake of Europe and for the sake of the transatlantic Alliance as a whole and as the minister (of Energy) just pointed out it must be both public and private but it’s essential for the public support to be manifest so they encourage to encourage the private sector investment”, said general James L. Jones, former National Security Advisor to the President of the United States and Executive Chairman Emeritus of the Atlantic Council.

Much of the moving away from imported energy from Russia has already been done but this also has to be a transatlantic effort that must be consistently in place for a long period of time.

Jones added that „the unified Europe” has to back Ukraine in its war with Russia as much as possible and that begins with empowering the Three Seas region to weaken and lessen „Moscow’s energy weapon”.

In this regard, Europe’s imports of NLG from the US have been vital during the last winter and it will be even more important the coming winter.

He added that the private sector must be leveraged to the fullest extent to make the investments needed for the Three Seas energy transformation and one solution could be the creation of the Three Seas Chamber of Commerce.

General James L. Jones was one of the keynote speakers at a top-level conversation on the financing opportunities and projects that the Romanian energy sector presents within the remit of the 3SI initiative, in a side-event organized by Energynomics and the Romanian Energy Center Association in the margin of the 8th Three Seas Initiative Summit in Bucharest.