At the Energy Community Parliamentary Plenum, hosted on Tuesday 3 December by the European Parliament’s Committee on Industry, Research and Energy (ITRE), the parties reiterated their desire to accelerate the energy integration of the EU’s neighbouring countries into the European Union’s internal electricity market.
“Energy integration within the framework of the Energy Community and the enlargement of the EU are two mutually reinforcing processes”, said Artur Lorkowski, Director of the Energy Community Secretariat, as the EU-Western Balkans Summit was taking place on the same day.
He expressed the hope that all the non-EU countries in the Community (Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Kosovo, North Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine) would one day be part of the EU, and underlined the advantages of the single European market, particularly in terms of energy prices.
Mr Lorkowski highlighted the electricity markets in the summer of 2024, which saw higher price peaks in the Western Balkans region than in the EU.
“Part of this is attributed to the lack of coordination in cooperation within the region and limited cooperation and exchanges with the EU”, he stressed. He also drew attention to the current situation in Ukraine, where the country has become dependent on imports from the EU.
Mechthild Wörsdörfer, Deputy Director-General of DG ENER at the European Commission, also highlighted the need to increase “the flexibility and liquidity of electricity trading”, which, according to the Commission, would generate a profit of €34 billion.
The Vice-Chair of the Plenum, Marina Pendeš, representing Bosnia-Herzegovina, stressed the need for the Energy Community’s market coupling to ensure that the electricity sector of the contracting parties is excluded from the EU’s Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM), “which will have a significant impact on the economies of our countries”.
However, all the participants, in particular MEPs from all political backgrounds, acknowledged and regretted the widespread delays among Community members in transposing the Electricity Integration Package, which was adopted in 2022. The contracting parties were required to transpose it by 31 December 2023, but no country has done so as yet.
The parties also discussed the socio-economic impact of high energy prices. They discussed past achievements and the progress needed in designing long-term measures to tackle energy poverty in the EU and in the Energy Community contracting parties, where levels of fuel poverty were already high before the 2022 energy crisis.
Discussions will continue at the Energy Community Ministerial Council on 12 December. (Original version in French by Pauline Denys)