Today the Energy Community Secretariat published its final monitoring report ahead of the Western Balkan 6 Summit in Paris on 4 July. The report takes stock of the progress made by the six Contracting Parties of the Energy Community in Southeast Europe in creating an integrated electricity market in the Western Balkans and beyond.
At the 2015 Vienna Summit, the six countries committed to implement so-called regional and national electricity market “soft measures”. These consist of, inter alia, taking steps towards electricity trading on integrated spot markets, regional balancing and regional capacity allocation as well as removing existing legal and regulatory barriers.
Director of the Secretariat, Mr Janez Kopač said: “Today’s report underlines the success of the recently signed Memorandum of Understanding of the WB6 on regional electricity market development. It provides the basis for further regional market integration. What is key now is to continue national reforms and overcome the remaining barriers towards the integration of the Western Balkan markets into the pan-European electricity market.”
The monitoring report concluded that the majority of the WB6 countries are still lagging behind in establishing organised market places as a precondition for efficient electricity trading. Moreover, cross-border electricity trade is below the region’s potential, reflecting the high level of market fragmentation.
The report will feed into the upcoming Western Balkan 6 Summit in Paris on 4 July, which will gather heads of government, foreign and economic ministers of the WB6 countries as well as Germany, Austria, Croatia, Italy and Slovenia to further steer regional electricity market integration.
Energy Community Secretariat’s ‘From Vienna to Paris’ WB6 Monitoring Report 07/2016
Western Balkan 6 – web sub-section
Western Balkan 6 Memorandum of Understanding