Brussels threatens Bulgaria with a fine because of violated energy rules

Bulgaria is threatened by a daily penalty of nearly €17,000 because the country constantly violates the EU requirements regarding its internal energy market and competition restriction in the supply of electricity and natural gas, Mediapool announced. On Thursday, the European Commission announced that it has referred the European Court of Justice that Bulgaria, Estonia and the UK have not fully implemented yet all the requirements of the third energy liberalisation package. According to it, by March 3, 2011, all the European Union member countries had to divide their energy assets in such a way that transmission systems be operated by independent companies, ensuring suppliers' access to the infrastructure capacity. In our country, however, NEK is still holding the electricity grid since it guarantees loans of nearly €500 mln. Currently, a consulting company is analysing the ways in which NEK and its subsidiary ESO can be divided, as well as the options for restructuring the loans guaranteed by the grid. By the end of March, the mechanism for separation of the two companies should be made clear, but is not known when this will happen. In addition, according to Brussels, access for private companies to the national electricity and natural gas grids is also difficult.

In particular, the lawsuit against Bulgaria in the European Court of Justice is due to incomplete implementation of common rules for trade with electricity and natural gas according to the two respective directives. For each of the two offences, the EC asked the Court to impose a daily penalty of €8,448 until Bulgaria corrects the problems.

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