The Energy Community held a series of events in Ljubljana this week, culminating with the annual Gas Forum on 6-7 October. Around 160 stakeholders took part. The exceptionally high number of participants and lively discussions reflect the increasing role the Energy Community plays in the international gas market landscape. Keynote speeches from Deputy Assistant Secretary for Energy Diplomacy of the U.S. Department of State, Robin Dunnigan, and Director of the European Agency for the Cooperation of Energy Regulators (ACER), Alberto Pototschnig, kicked off the two-day event.
The focus of this year’s Forum was how to better integrate the Contracting Parties’ and EU Member States’ gas markets, in terms of both infrastructure and market integration. The Forum concluded that the most effective way is to provide a symmetrical legal framework that ensures equally binding obligations for EU Member States as well as Contracting Parties and a functioning Energy Community dispute resolution mechanism. Following the Third Energy Package, the adoption of EU Network Codes will be the necessary next step to ensure coherence and compatibility.
The European Commission confirmed that the first Network Codes are likely to be proposed for adoption by the Contracting Parties at the Ministerial Council in 2016, provided that solutions for the remaining problems concerning their implementation at EU-Energy Community borders can be found and certification of Transmission System Operators and effective independence of energy regulators is in place.
Another dimension of the Forum was Pan-European security of gas supply. The Forum welcomed the European Commission’s aim to replace the current legislative framework on security of supply with a more coordinated regional approach.
At a dedicated workshop on 5 October, the Secretariat presented a study it has commissioned on gas market integration to be published later this year. The study identifies four integration models including an analysis of their costs and benefits as well as added value in terms of contributing to the market functioning criteria of the European Gas Target Model.