On 30 September and 1 October 2019 the annual meeting of the Balkan Advisory Forum Board of Regulators was held in Plovdiv. It was attended by delegations of the Energy and Water Regulatory Commission, led by its chairman Assoc. Prof. Ivan Ivanov, the Energy Regulatory Commission of the Republic of North Macedonia, led by its president Marko Bislimoski, the Regulatory Authority for Energy of the Republic of Greece, led by the Board member Prof. Dr. Apostolos Gotsias, the Energy Agency of the Republic of Serbia, led by its president Dejan Popovic, and the Energy Regulatory Agency of Montenegro, led by Dragutin Martinovic, Board member. Delegations of regulators from Albania and Bosnia and Herzegovina also attended the meeting, applying for membership in the organization.
In a joint position adopted, the national regulators – BAF members have called for accelerated liberalization of the regional gas market. They will synchronize their regulatory policies in line with European legislation and will support interconnection projects among the markets in the region in order to create a liquid wholesale market based on non-discriminatory access to the transmission infrastructure and transparency of transmission tariffs. National regulators support the common regulatory practices implementation on REMIT to prevent market abuse and will support the unification of capacity allocation procedures of existing Interconnection points.
At the annual meeting, BAF Board of Regulators reviewed and approved the application for membership in BAF of the regulatory body of Albania – the Energy Regulatory Authority /ERE/, as well as the application of regulators in Bosnia and Herzegovina – the State Electricity Regulatory Commission (SERC), the Regulatory Commission for Energy in Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (FERC), and the Regulatory Commission for Energy of Republic of Srpska /RERS/. In the course of the discussions, the Final report on the wholesale electricity markets monitoring in the region, prepared by experts of the working group under the Board of Regulators, was also presented. The analysis indicates the priority role of the interconnectivity development, increased security of supply and transmission capacity, and competition development.
In accordance with BAF constitutive Agreement, the annual meeting participants elected as the next chairman of the organization the Regulatory Authority for Energy of the Republic of Greece, which will manage its activities over the next one year period on a rotational basis.
Source; EWRC
