European Energy Community has imposed Sanctions on Bosnia

The European Energy Community has imposed sanctions on Bosnia and Herzegovina, confirmed Janez Kopac, director of the Energy Community Secretariat. The reason is the violation of the directive on sulfur in fuels and non-compliance with energy packages on energy and gas.

”It is true that sanctions have been imposed on BiH and it will not participate in decision-making on the issues of the European Energy Community budget and budget execution in a period of two years, unless it eliminates the violations in question in the meantime,” said Kopac.

The decision on sanctions was made at the end of last year, and the EEC published its contents on Thursday. Earlier, there were several warnings that BiH could be punished for violating international rules. Among the reasons that initiated the adoption of this decision, it is stated that only in BiH, of all the member states of the Energy Community, when it comes to petroleum products, Euro 3 can still be used, while the European standard is Euro 5.

BiH allows more sulfur in petroleum products to support domestic production at the Brod Refinery. Another reason why the sanctions were introduced is that the law was not adopted on the regulator of electricity and natural gas, transmission and electricity market in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Namely, that law has been in the procedure since 2017, but the last convocation of the Council of Ministers sent different materials to the entities, so that there was no harmonization. According to that law, it is planned to transfer the competence for gas issues to the SERC Electricity Regulatory Commission, RTRS writes.