Council of Ministers of BiH supports Šarović ahead of conference: Can we avoid Energy Community sanctions?

At today's session, the Council of Ministers of BiH took note of the oral information from the Minister of Foreign Trade and Economic Relations of BiH, Mirko Šarović, regarding the upcoming ministerial conference of the Energy Community member countries, which will be held tomorrow, October 16, in Tirana, and expressed support for Minister Šarović to undertake all activities at the Tirana conference aimed at halting the sanctions threatening BiH, writes the Bosnian news agency Patria.

The possibility of sanctions being imposed on BiH by the Energy Community, which could leave BiH without access to numerous EU funds used for the development of the energy sector, was previously warned about by Minister Šarović.

BiH was obligated to adopt a series of laws from the so-called Third Energy Package at the beginning of this year, which would incorporate the latest EU directives in the field of energy. Among other things, we were supposed to implement measures regulating gas trade, as well as prepare a document on the framework energy policy.

Although the energy policy was adopted in the BiH entity of Republika Srpska, it was not in the Federation of BiH, meaning there is still no clear state policy in this area.

Laws on wholesale, transport, regulator, and other issues related to gas were also supposed to be adopted.

- These laws need to be adopted at the state level, and if we cannot reach an agreement on state laws, they should be adopted at the entity level in identical forms. The Energy Community insists that throughout BiH, regarding the gas market, completely identical market conditions prevail - Šarović previously emphasized.

Whether Šarović will succeed in stopping the sanctions threatening us will be known after the conference in Tirana, but the situation in BiH regarding this issue has clearly been taken unseriously.