BRUSSELS – The Energy Community has no real mechanisms to help Kyiv settle its dispute with Russian gas company Gazprom over the payment of a fine of $7 billion for taking less gas than agreed under their gas supply contract.
Director of the Secretariat of the Energy Community Janez Kopac
(Slovenia) said in an exclusive interview with Interfax-Ukraine that
Kyiv had not officially invited the community to help settle this issue.
While commenting on the recent exchange of statements between Kyiv
and Brussels on this issue, Kopac said: “The secretariat is ready to
assist Ukraine as a contracting party of the Energy Community in
resolving problems as much as we possibly can. Two aspects need to be
emphasized in this context: we need to be formally involved by the
competent Ukrainian authorities. And we are limited to providing
assistance… We’re unfortunately not a body with executive,
decision-making powers. Not even within the Energy Community and even
less so for contractual relations between a contracting party and a
third country,” he explained.
The director also said that the Energy Community is mostly involved in the introduction of agreed legislation.
When asked what exactly the experts of the community can do if Kyiv
asks them to help settle the dispute, Kopac said: “The bulk of the work
our experts do is to assist the contracting parties to draft their
national legislation. Our experts know the acquis communautaire by
heart. Although the nine contracting parties are very different, the
problems are often quite similar. In short, having worked with the other
parties throughout the years, our experts know what the bottlenecks are
and have a bundle of good practices to draw upon.”
Kopac said that the European Community has a long list of open issues with Ukraine.
“This include among other things, revision of the existing gas market
model, unfair and discriminatory treatment of investors interested in
producing electricity from renewable energy sources, the way that
capacity is allocated for cross border trade in electricity, the
transposition of the large combustion plant directive and the lack of
state aid legislation. Last week we, for instance, opened a case against
Ukraine for its failure to transpose the directive on the sulphur
content of liquid fuels. Maybe the opening of a case is a way to start a
structured dialogue with the Ukrainian authorities,” Kopac said.
The official also said that he planned to visit Kyiv in March to meet
with Ukrainian Energy and Coal Industry Minister Eduard Stavytsky in
March. “This is part of series of visits that I’m conducting as the new
director of the Secretariat. Although the visit will be of courtesy
nature, I shall not miss the opportunity to address the most pressing
open issues. I’ll also talk about Ukraine’s upcoming
presidency-in-office. After Serbia, Ukraine will take over the Energy
Community presidency-in-office on January 1, 2014,” Kopach said.
