Italian Deputy Minister for Economic Development by Claudio De Vincenti Tuesday said that from the perspective of the EU member states "the drop in oil prices will lead to a drop in costs of one of our key imports and this obviously have a positive impact on the recovery of economy in Europe." Speaking at a press conference after a meeting of EU energy ministers, he said today's meeting, however, did not discuss the oil price crisis.
"We have to see how the market evolves and how the oil market gets back to some kind of balance," said the Italian minister whose country holds the current EU Presidency.
On his part, Vice-President of the European Commission Maros Sefcovic in charge of Energy Union told the joint press conference that "we will see how the falling of oil prices will effect the prices of the gas and. We have to diversify our sources of energy." Sefcovic said he informed the ministers about his visit to Baku and in Astana last week where he discussed the need on acceleration of Southern gas corridors pipeline.
"We have got very clear assurances that they are very much working up on the schedule, they want to have this project built on time, by 2019 they would like to bring the gas from Caspian Sea to the European border and they would like us to help with a coordination of the European partners of the Southern gas corridors," he added.