Building a Europe whole, free, and undivided has long been a guiding priority of the relationship between the United States and the European Union. While much progress has been made, particularly through the process of EU enlargement, Western Europe and Central and Eastern Europe remain economically divided, lacking the infrastructural connectivity necessary to create single European market. For this reason, the construction of a North-South Corridor of strategic communications lines linking the Baltic to the Adriatic and Black seas, should be elevated as a priority of the US-EU agenda. That is a principal recommendation of a joint study by the Atlantic Council and Central Europe Energy Partners, “Completing Europe: From the North-South Corridor to Energy, Transportation, and Telecommunications Union” (the report is available on the CEEP’s website). Led by Paweł Olechnowicz, Chairman of CEEP’s Board of Directors, and former US National Security Advisor James Jones, the report surveyed the current state of economic infrastructure linking the nations of Central and Eastern Europe together and that region with the broader European economy. Their study underscored how incomplete the process of European economic integration remains today. In Central and Eastern Europe, national networks of railroads, power lines, highways, pipelines and other communications links remain largely disconnected from each other and from Western Europe. This is “an unhealed legacy of half-a century of Soviet led development, during which disinterest in such intra-regional connections kept these lands dependent on Moscow.” (James Jones and Pawel Olechnowicz, “Completing Europe: The North-South Corridor,” The Hill, November 21, 2014) [Tweet "North-South Corridor of energy pipelines remains one of the most urgent requirements to be fulfilled"] Jones [...]
In a few words
We represent the widely understood Central Europe energy sector (electricity generation, distribution and transmission, renewables, gas, oil, heat generation and distribution, chemical industries, etc.), universities and scientific institutions.
