New report: After gas markets stabilised in 2025, today’s price shocks necessitate diversification and market integration  

ECRB’s 2025 market review finds more stable gas prices and new market entrants, and calls for full implementation of gas network codes to complete EU legal alignment 

Gas wholesale markets in the Energy Community continued to stabilise in 2025 after the 2022 energy crisis, according to the Monitoring Report “Gas Wholesale Markets in the Energy Community”, published today by the Energy Community Regulatory Board (ECRB).  

With gas prices surging again in 2026, the report’s central recommendation has gained urgency: further diversification of supply sources and deeper market integration, through full implementation of the gas network codes, to reduce the risk of supply disruptions and extreme price increases. 

Countries that rely on a single supplier or route have little protection when supply is cut, or prices spike. More sources and routes spread that risk. Common EU rules, in turn, let gas move and be traded more easily across borders, so countries can draw on their neighbours’ supplies in a crisis and consumers benefit from more competition. 

Key developments in 2025 include: 

• Prices higher, but steadier. Import prices rose towards the end of 2024 and then held at that level throughout 2025, with only minor fluctuations in summer. In Moldova, North Macedonia and Ukraine, the three Contracting Parties with available data, the weighted average import price was 43.16 EUR/MWh, 28% above 2024 and above the EU average of 36 EUR/MWh. 

• Supply routes are shifting, but options are limited. Except Ukraine, all Contracting Parties are import-dependent. No Contracting Party currently imports LNG, leaving them dependent on pipeline gas. 

• More players, but a few still dominate. More companies are entering some of the region’s gas markets: the number of traders shipping gas across North Macedonia’s borders doubled between 2023 and 2025, and in Moldova a second major supplier cut the leading company’s share from 88% to 55%. But new entrants have yet to loosen the grip of the biggest suppliers. A single company still sells over 99% of the gas in Serbia and 71% in North Macedonia. 

• EU rules (the gas network codes) are being adopted, but the job is not finished. Ukraine, Moldova and Serbia now largely follow EU rules on what companies pay to use gas pipelines and how space in cross-border pipelines is shared out. But a company moving gas across a border must still book pipeline space twice, once on each side. And no Contracting Party fully applies the EU rules that keep gas supply and demand in balance on the network each day. 

EU Member States share responsibility for integrating gas markets. Under Regulation (EU) 2024/1789, they had to apply the network codes at their borders with non-EU countries from 5 August 2026, unless granted an exemption. Hungary, Bulgaria and Slovakia requested exemptions. In a February 2026 Recommendation, the ECRB stressed that applying the codes at all border points between the EU and the Contracting Parties is crucial for market integration. 

The ECRB also draws attention to the expected increase in gas transmission costs resulting from changes in gas volumes and transit routes. Regulators are invited to design tariffs that safeguard the functioning of transmission systems while allowing gas to enter markets at reasonable prices. The reduction of conventional gas consumption and the roll-out of renewable gases should be carefully planned, together with infrastructure development, to contain network costs without compromising security of supply.