Bečarević: The state got nothing, energy is exclusively within the competence of the entities

By Almir Bečarević, energy expert

Milorad Dodik has conquered the FBiH Parliament as well. With the adopted energy laws, FBiH and RS are equalized in legal solutions. The state got nothing.

The state will never again get anything significant from energy in the legal shaping of the market. Now we have two regulators in Trebinje and Mostar. Both will regulate the market in their respective entities, and only DERK will remain for the state, for which they are preparing to reduce its competencies, and the electricity market, which will be in RS.

Dodik, through HDZ, managed to equalize the two entities in the legal competencies of the entities, thereby achieving what he has not achieved since the war, which is that energy is the competence of the entities. No more public corporations, no more state-level regulators, and energy remains fragmented at the entity level.
Now that we have an energy regulator in FBiH, we will also get traders and suppliers from Serbia and Croatia who will enter the natural gas sector.

The import of oil for FBiH is controlled by Croatia, natural gas goes to Serbia, and the electricity exchange goes to RS or Serbia, while EPBiH is destined for a slow death.

These three adopted laws are the end of any integration at the state level in the field of energy and the beginning of the creation of separate entity regulatory systems with one island called HZHB.

They say these are reform laws for BiH's European path. I didn't know FBiH was going to Europe alone, and I hoped it was BiH. There are no reform laws on energy at the BiH level, and BiH has signed an energy community treaty. That's how much for BiH's path, in which entities lead energy policies and regulate the market each for themselves.