Diana Milev Čavor, coordinator of the climate and energy program in the non-governmental organization Eko-team, said that it is necessary to urgently amend the Treaty on the Energy Community, in order to achieve decarbonization in the countries of the Western Balkans.
"We emphasize the necessity and need to amend the Treaty on the Energy Community, with a focus on the active participation of the European Commission in this process. Processes and obligations concerning the decarbonization of the countries of the Western Balkans, the EU coordinates precisely through the Energy Community. However, many deficiencies and structural deficiencies have been identified in the Treaty on the Energy Community, which contributed to the non-fulfillment of obligations from this treaty in all countries of the region. In this regard, one of the devastating facts is that the emission of polluting substances from the majority of coal-fired thermal power plants in the region has not decreased in the last five years, but even decreased and magnified," the announcement states.
The Treaty on the Energy Community, Milev Čavor adds, refers to its limited power to punish.
"Compared to other international agreements, such as those within the European Union, the Energy Community Treaty does not contain strict punishment mechanisms for countries that do not respect its rules. The lack of a functional punishment mechanism in previous years limited the application of the Treaty, so today we have a situation where the Energy Community "has opened proceedings against all member countries. Apart from the cases opened against them by the Energy Community, there have been no substantial consequences of these violations," she states.
The case of Montenegro, he adds, is also still open, given that the Advisory Board within the Energy Community has not yet submitted a legal opinion, so at the Ministerial meeting held at the end of 2023 in the Energy Community, no decision was made on possible sanctions for Montenegro. in connection with exceeding the number of permitted working hours of the Pljevlja Thermal Power Plant.
"The European Commission has an important role within the Energy Community Treaty. It must monitor the implementation of the Energy Community Treaty by member states and other contracting parties, and make proposals for improving the Energy Community Treaty to ensure its effective implementation," it added. in the statement.
Milev Čavor says that it is important to amend the Energy Community Agreement in order to ensure respect and fulfillment of obligations from the agreement, and that there must be responsibility for assumed and unfulfilled obligations.
"This is precisely why we have to be careful in accepting contractual obligations, which must be both realistic and achievable, which was not the case until now. Our ministers signed everything that was on the table for signing, unaware of what a large part of these obligations meant, and that is why a large part of those obligations remained unfulfilled", she points out.
Although the Energy Community did not submit reports to the European Commission on the results achieved, it is added, the European Commission is "also aware of all the problems in compliance with this Agreement and non-fulfillment of obligations from it".
"Amending the Treaty is the only realistic next step if the European Commission really wants to see some progress in the countries of the Western Balkans on the road to decarbonization. That progress is currently unsatisfactory and very slow", concludes Milev Čavor.
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