Energy Charter Treaty

35 European Energy Charter Areas of cooperation could include: - horizontal and organisational issues; - energy efficiency, including environmental protection; - prospecting, production, transportation and use of oil and oil products and modernisation of refineries; - prospecting, production and use of natural gas, interconnection of gas networks and transmission via high-pressure gas pipelines; - all aspects of the nuclear fuel cycle including improvements in safety in that sector; - modernisation of power stations, interconnection of power networks and transmission of electricity via high-voltage power lines; - all aspects of the coal cycle, including clean coal technologies; - development of renewable energy sources; - transfers of technology and encouragement of innovation; - cooperation in dealing with the effects of major accidents, or of other events in the energy sector with transfrontier consequences. The signatories will, in exceptional cases, consider transitional arrangements. They, in particular, take into account the specific circumstances facing some states of Central and Eastern Europe and the USSR as well as their need to adapt their economies to the market system, and accept the possibility of a stage-by- stage transition in those countries for the implementation of those particular provisions of the Charter, Basic Agreement and related Protocols that they are, for objective reasons, unable to implement immediately and in full. Specific arrangements for coming into full compliance with Charter provisions as elaborated in the Basic Agreement and Protocols will be negotiated by each Party requesting transitional status, and progress towards full compliance will be subject to periodic review. Title IV: Final Provisions The signatories request the Government of The Netherlands, President- in-office of the Council of the European Communities, to transmit to the Secretary General of the United Nations the text of the European Energy Charter which is not eligible for registration under Article 102 of the Charter of the United Nations.