• Enlargement Policy
• Energy Policy
• Energy Community
• European Neighbourhood Policy

The Energy Community is an international organisation which brings together the European Union and its neighbours of South East-Europe and Black Sea Region to create an integrated pan-European energy market. The Treaty establishing the Energy Community was signed in October 2005 in Athens and entered in force in July 2006. Its key objective is to extend the EU internal energy market rules and principles to the Contracting Parties (the non-EU members of the Energy Community) on the basis of a legally binding framework.
This Master’s Thesis provides an analysis of the implementation of the EU Third Energy Package in the Energy Community, which asked of the Contracting Parties a more stringent effort to open their national energy sectors and stimulate cross-border energy trade. Liberalising energy markets however is not an easy process. When it is hindered by non-transposition or skirted by non-implementation of the Energy Community law, the construction of a pan-European energy market is in turn hampered and delayed. The current, weak and politically biased Dispute Settlement mechanism of the Energy Community, together with the absence of a Court, does not effectively incentivize the Parties to rectify the breaches of the Energy Community acquis (the EU acquis transposed by the Energy Community). This Thesis intends to demonstrate that, in spite of the shortcomings of such a mechanism, the Energy Community Secretariat -the central coordinating body of this organisation- has greatly contributed to strengthen the degree of enforcement of the Energy Community acquis in the Contracting Parties. In particular, it has been playing an important role in implementing liberalisation in energy markets and in furthering cross-border energy trade among them.
Chapter I describes the evolution of the Energy Community: conceived as a pre-accession tool for the post-war South-East European countries in the EU, it turned into the main instrument of the EU external energy policy. Indeed, the accession of some European Neighbourhood Policy countries (namely, Moldova, Ukraine, and Georgia) demonstrates that even in the absence of the EU membership prospective there is still a will to share the same internal energy market with the EU. Chapter II provides a legal analysis of the Treaty. In addition to explaining features and scope of the Energy Community’s policies, it describes the decision-making process, the institutional framework, and the EU participation in the Energy Community institutions. Chapter III analyses the functioning of the Dispute Settlement system and highlights its weaknesses: it is diplomatic (and not judicial) in nature, sanctions are ineffective, and investors are not adequately protected. Then, the Chapter studies the amendments recently adopted to enhance the Dispute Settlement procedure and also illustrates the Dispute Resolution and Negotiation Centre established in 2016. Chapter IV, firstly, goes into further detail about the Secretariat’s powers within the Dispute Settlement system, and then it shows the how the Secretariat wisely deploys its room for manoeuvring in order to ensure the correct application of the Energy Community law by the Parties of Treaty. The Chapter aims to prove that the Secretariat has been actively working for the enforcement of the Energy Community acquis, and primarily for the identification of those obstacles which impede the full liberalisation and regional integration of the Contracting Parties’ energy markets. Finally, the Thesis concludes with a case study which results emblematic in showing the pivotal role of the Secretariat in implementing liberalization in the Energy Community market. Case ECS-2/17 deals with the Opening Letter sent to Ukraine in August 2017, where the Secretariat took the preliminary view that certain aspects of Ukraine’s Public Service Obligations Regulations were non-compliant with the Energy Community acquis and prevented the opening up of the national natural gas market.