Energy Community for South East Europe: rationale behind and implementation to date

The European Commission and the Stability Pact have launched the Athens Process in 2002 and the Energy Community Treaty, with the objective of creating a regional energy market in SEE, was signed in 2005. The purpose of this paper is to give an overview of the national but also reforms at regional level in the electricity systems in SEE, but also to underline the open questions with regard to the areas in which reforms are not complete and progress is still needed. The focus of the paper will be put on the implementation of the Energy Community Treaty covering its most relevant aspects. It does not aim however, to provide a detailed comparative analysis of the electricity systems in all nine countries from SEE, neither to study one specific issue. Therefore, real conclusions will not be drawn at the end, but rather questions for further research will be left open. After the introduction of the development of European energy policy and the requirements for liberalization of the electricity markets in the Member States, a presentation of the Athens Process and the Energy Community as an example of a regional energy market will be done. In addition an explanation of the rationale behind the Energy Community will be provided. Afterwards, the progress made and the obstacles that still exist on the way to establishment of the SEE regional energy market are going to be presented, through the way of implementation of the electricity acquis.