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In the coming years, the fact that Western Europe has no choice but to equip itself with new ways of energy supply will confer a strategic place on the Balkans. The countries concerned by the projects promoted within the framework of the « southern corridor » intend to take advantage of this transit role to boost economies hardly affected by the financial crisis, and lighten their energy dependence, while waiting to develop their own potential, still under-exploited, in particular in the renewable energies field. But the Balkans States intend also to seize this opportunity to raise their weight on the international scene and to assert their regional supremacy. Those political stakes drive most of them to settle (or minimize) some bilateral issues with their neighbors. It also drives them to broaden their partnerships beyond the European continent in order to free themselves from relations more and more tense between Russia and the European Union.