Serbia, EU Reach Agreement on Srbijagas
The European Energy Community and the Serbian Ministry of Mining and Energy have agreed on an action plan for restructuring Srbijagas, lifting an obstacle to Serbia's progress toward the EU in the energy sphere.
Previously the European Energy Community announced that Serbia would be subjected to sanctions unless it reorganized in a timely manner Srbijagas, the state gas monopolist with debt measured in hundreds of millions of euros. Serbia had faced the demand to unbundle Srbijagas into a holding with two units - for transmission and for gas supply.
The agreement was reached only after the Energy Community threatened Serbia with certain sanctions. According to the February 20 agreement, Srbijagas will in March 2015 found a legally separate daughter company that will be in charge of managing the gas grid.
The new company is to obtain a license from the Serbian Energy Agency as a gas transmission system operator by the end of May 2015.
It was underlined as especially important that the action plan also envisages measures which would by July 1, 2015 clearly separate the managing structures of the new company and Srbijagas, whereby the new company's management would gain independence in running the company.
"We are satisfied with the agreement. The support of the Serbian Ministry of Energy was essential, but I feel that now the Srbijagas management is also taking its obligations very seriously," said the head of the gas section at the Energy Community Secretariat, Predrag Grujicic, who will coordinate the implementation of the action plan for Srbijagas.
The agreement on the action plan was made by Energy Community Secretariat Deputy Director Dirk Buschle and Serbian Minister of Mining and Energy Aleksandar Antic.
The Energy Community stressed that the agreement on Srbijagas was grounds for Serbia to eliminate the violation of the Community's regulations, determined by the Council of Ministers in September 2014.
Otherwise, the Energy Community warned, the negotiations with Serbia in the field of energy may be frozen.
Igor Jovanovic