On 20 January 2011, the Energy Community Secretariat sent Opening Letters to Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Montenegro and Serbia in accordance with Article 12 of the Rules of Procedure for Dispute Settlement. The Secretariat, acting under Article 90 of the Treaty, notes that these six Contracting Parties have not yet adopted a common coordinated congestion management method and procedure for the allocation of capacity to the market.

The obligation to do so is a decision by the Ministerial Council of 2008 establishing the so-called “8th region” and incorporating into the Energy Community the Congestion Management Guidelines on the management and allocation of available transfer capacity of interconnections between national systems annexed to the Regulation 1228/2003. The obligation on Contracting Parties to apply a common coordinated congestion management method and procedure for the allocation of capacity to the market was due as from 31 December 2009.

Over the past years, the Energy Community’s institutions’ as well as the transmission system operators in the region have provided support to establish a South Eastern Europe Coordinated Auction Office (CAO) as one possible approach to common coordinated congestion management method and procedure for the allocation of capacity. However, neither the CAO nor any other common coordinated congestion management method and procedure for the allocation of capacity to the market have so far been implemented. Instead, capacity allocation and congestion management in the region are predominantly performed bilaterally between the neighboring TSO which in most cases apply different allocation methods on each side of the border.

With the present Opening Letters, the Secretariat initiated preliminary procedures, the purpose of which is giving the aforementioned Contracting Parties the possibility to react to the allegation of non-compliance with Energy Community law, and enabling the Secretariat to establish the full factual and legal background of the case. The Contracting Parties have been given until 21 of March 2011 to comply of their own accord with the requirements of the Treaty, or to justify their position. According to Articles 6 and 16 of the Rules of Procedure for Dispute Settlement, interested parties may be granted access to the case file and may submit written observations on the present case to the Secretariat within one month from today.

All requests for information on this case should be addressed to the Legal Counsel Dirk Buschle at dirk.buschle@energy-community.org or +43 1 535 2222 24 and should make reference to the case numbers.