TIRANA, Oct. 18 – The Vienna-based Energy Community Secretariat, an international organization dealing with energy policy, has warned of sanctions against Serbia in case it does not settle its transmission grid dispute with Kosovo by the end of this year.
The dispute has also affected Albania and is holding back its newly completed interconnection line with Kosovo and government plans to set up a joint energy market and power exchange with Kosovo which declared independence from Serbia in 2008.
Under a decision dated Oct. 14, the Energy Community’s ministerial council established a breach of Community law by Serbia for failure to respect the Second Energy Package on the interconnectors between Kosovo and its neighbors.
“By not using the revenues resulting from the allocation of interconnection capacity on the interconnectors with Albania, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia and Montenegro for one or more of the purposes specified in Article 6(6) of Regulation 1228/2003, the Republic of Serbia, to which actions and non-actions of its state-owned transmission system operator are imputable, has failed to comply with Article 6 of Regulation 1228/2003,” says the decision.
The Energy Community, whose mission is to extend the EU internal energy market to South East Europe and beyond on the basis of a legally binding framework, urges Serbia to take appropriate measures on the identified breach and ensure compliance with Energy community law by December 2016 and regularly report on the measures taken, otherwise it will initiate procedures.
Albania’s energy ministry hailed the decision as a serious step to unblock the situation.
“This is a serious step that European institutions undertake against Serbia which continues failing to fulfill the commitments it has undertaken, including the Brussels agreement on providing independence to the Kosovo transmission system,” the Albanian energy ministry said in a statement.
Eight years after its independence from Serbia, Kosovo’s Transmission System and Market Operator (KOSTT) says it does not receive compensation for transmission going through its network and is barred from allocating transmission capacity on interconnectors in neighboring Albania, Macedonia and Montenegro. Serbia still de jure owns the Kosovo distribution grid while an EU-mediated deal between the Serbian and Kosovo transmission operators as part of the normalization of relations between the two countries signed back in 2014 has remained only on paper.
Last July, Albania and Kosovo inaugurated a German-funded 400 kV interconnection line that will help the two neighboring countries increase energy security by diversifying electricity resources and set up a joint energy market.
The new interconnection line and the power exchange will help Kosovo’s lignite-fired power plants and Albania’s hydro-dependent electricity system exchange electricity during their peak production levels, reducing dependency on costly imports.
