Brussels, 06/01/2016 (Agence Europe) - On Tuesday 5 January, the Energy Community Secretariat passed on to the European Commission a complaint submitted by the Ukrainian gas company Naftogaz, under article 90 of the Energy Community Treaty and concerning an alleged violation of Energy Community law by the highly controversial new Russian gas pipeline project.
This complaint was transferred on the basis of a procedural act of the Energy Community Ministerial Council on the Rules of Procedure for Dispute Settlement under the Treaty, the Secretariat explains in a press release.
The Energy Community Treaty, which entered into force at the end of 2005, lays down a cooperation framework to create an integrated energy market between the EU and the member countries of the Community (Albania, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Kosovo, Moldova, Montenegro, Serbia and Ukraine, with Armenia, Georgia, Norway and Turkey enjoying observer status) on the basis of the Community energy acquis and the principles of the single market.
The Russian project to double the capacity of the gas pipeline Nord Stream (which has connected Russia to Germany under the Baltic Sea since 2012), Nord Stream 2, has caused considerable outcry in the EU, where, at the end of last year, seven member states - Estonia, Hungary, Lithuania, Latvia, Poland, Romania and Slovakia - unambiguously asserted their opposition to this project, which aims to reduce the transit of Russian gas to Europe via Ukraine and which, they fear, could have negative impacts for their energy security (see EUROPE 11443).
The plans were also the subject of heated debate at the most recent European Council, on 18 December, where other member states from central Europe also stressed the risks for the energy independence of the EU, which, they argued, would be seriously hindered if the project went ahead (see EUROPE 11457).
The issue of the compliance of the Nord Stream 2 project with the third package on the liberalisation of the energy market and EU competition law is still under scrutiny.
Since the announcement, in early September, of a shareholder pact between the Russian gas company Gazprom and five European partners (the German energy companies E.ON and BASF-Wintershall, Austria's OMV, the Anglo-Dutch Royal Dutch Shell and Engie of France) to build the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline, the Commission has repeatedly stressed that as for any other new energy infrastructure project, it will examine the compliance of this project with EU law. (Original version in French by Emmanuel Hagry)