Bečarević for NAP: The FBiH Government's Law will bring an energy collapse of the remaining state-owned companies!

(Patria) - The Law on Energy and Regulation of Energy Activities in the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina is not reformist, nor does it bring what the Law on Energy should bring, claims Almir Bečarević, minister in the KS Government and expert on gas issues, for NAP.

"Laws of this type exist in the region, and this 'our' law is comical compared to the region. States pass such laws, not parts of a state. The state determines what it will regulate and what it will leave to lower levels of government.

The state does not have a regulatory commission for energy, only DERK, which is the regulator for electricity at the state level and to which the state has assigned competencies in the electricity sector, while the entities have been assigned competencies that are not within the state regulator's jurisdiction," points out Bečarević.

There is no state regulator for gas in BiH, he warns, and now we have an entity regulator that will regulate the gas sector.

"This is what we already have in the smaller entity. The previous government wanted to push this through for its own interests under the guise of fulfilling conditions from obligations to the Energy Community. To put it simply:

Article 22 states that the Regulatory Commission, within its jurisdiction, takes measures under point c) to open the market for all energy sources, and under point e) to create conditions for third-party access to network systems. To be even clearer, with this law, the Regulator will take measures for the OPENING OF THE GAS MARKET in the gas sector, and create conditions for third-party access to the transport system," points out Bečarević.

Without a state law and without a state-level regulator, the FBiH is now doing what RS has already done, thus opening up the possibility for gas traders from RS and Serbia to participate.

"The Decree on the Regulation of the Gas Market in FBiH has stopped this for the last 15 years, and this Decree loses its meaning because the law has a stronger legal force. At the same time, when you look at the definitions, you see that there is a 'protected customer' in the electricity sector, but not in the gas sector.

In the Decree on the Regulation of the Gas Sector, there is one way of forming gas prices for suppliers, and now there is an open market. Sarajevogas forms its gas price with the approval of a fixed 'margin', and now there should be a regulator that forms and approves a tariff model, and the state has not transferred that authority to it as in the electricity sector," points out Bečarević.

He adds that he would not waste words on other nonsensical articles of the law because the goal of this law is not to regulate what the state transfers to the entity, but to open markets in segments where they are not yet open, thus surrendering to neighbors and losing our sovereignty by entering all energy sectors.

"I wish I were wrong, but regulating energy without the state having defined everything from the obligations of the Dayton Agreement and the chapter 'PUBLIC CORPORATIONS', and without having regulated by state law what infrastructure passes through both entities, is a path to the energy collapse of the remaining state-owned companies," he adds.