New report: Gas trading picks up across South-East Europe, but border barriers slow integration 

2026 SEEGAS report analyses H1 2025 and H1 2026 trading data from five exchanges, recommending steps to deepen regional gas market integration

The Energy Community Secretariat has published its 2026 SEEGAS report, which tracks gas market development and integration in South-East and Eastern Europe between the first half of 2025 and the first half of 2026.  

Although progress is uneven, the report points to three positive trends in market development and liquidity: more short-term trading, more regular trading and prices that largely move together across markets. In Ukraine, short-term trading on UEEX rose tenfold, with trades on 97% of days. Greece (EnExGroup) and Romania (BRM Romania) recorded continuous or nearly continuous short-term trading. In Moldova, spot volumes on BRM EST fell by 72%, yet the number of trades almost tripled and trading took place on 74% of days, up from 48%, a sign of a more active and less concentrated market. Gas prices across the region also generally move together, showing that markets are interconnected. Price levels, however, have not fully converged, and trading volumes and participation still vary widely between markets. 

The main obstacles to further market integration are differing national market rules and incomplete implementation of the common EU rules for gas networks, known as network codes. Earlier this year, national regulators in Bulgaria, Hungary and Slovakia requested exemptions (derogations) from key rules at several borders with Energy Community Contracting Parties, mainly on bundling cross-border capacity into a single product and, in some cases, on booking it through a joint platform. The European Commission rejected most of the requests or granted them only in part. As a result, most of the relevant rules will apply from gas year 2027/2028, which starts in October 2027. The report stresses that these rules should not be used to protect or isolate national markets. 

According to the report, the following priorities would deepen market integration in the region: 

• Implement the network codes in full, especially the rules on managing congested pipelines, allocating pipeline capacity and balancing the system through the market. 

• Make cross-border trading easier, by improving access to capacity at borders, bundling capacity as foreseen by the EU’s capacity allocation rules (CAM NC) and improving booking arrangements, so that trading activity builds up across the region instead of in separate national pockets. 

• Deepen smaller markets and track progress, with more trading for next-day, same-day and future delivery, more companies taking part, and more consistent data collection on trading, participation, concentration and prices. 

About SEEGAS: The South-East European Gas Initiative (SEEGAS) is a cooperation platform launched by the Energy Community Secretariat in 2020 that brings together gas exchanges, transmission system operators and regulators to develop cross-border gas trading and a more integrated regional market.  

For EU Member States and Energy Community Contracting Parties alike, a more integrated regional gas market is a shared route to diversifying supply and strengthening security of supply, particularly as the EU moves to phase out Russian gas. 

This edition is the first to measure regional gas market development and integration using exchange data and a common set of indicators. It analyses trading data from five exchanges: BRM EST (Moldova), BRM (Romania), CEGH (Austria), EnExGroup (Greece) and UEEX (Ukraine). The results will serve as the baseline for future editions.