The Agency for Cooperation of Energy Regulators (ACER) and the Energy Community Secretariat have signed an administrative arrangement to enhance cooperation.
According to this arrangement, the Agency, within the scope of its market monitoring tasks, may request the support of the Energy Community Secretariat in collecting the necessary market data and information for extending the coverage of its annual market monitoring report to the Energy Community Contracting Parties. The Secretariat will support the National Regulatory Authorities of the Contracting Parties in collecting and validating the data and information required for market monitoring purposes. The agreement also envisages the participation, as observers, of the Secretariat’s staff in the Agency’s working groups on electricity, gas, and implementation and monitoring, and their substructures.
In addition, the agreement outlines the possibility for the Agency to rely on the Secretariat’s expertise in assessing the progress of Energy Community Contracting Parties in the transposition and actual implementation of the energy acquis. This assessment is part of the evaluation of a Contracting Party regulator’s application to participate in the Agency’s working groups.
The administrative arrangement was signed in Bratislava on 2 December by Director Janez Kopač on behalf of the Energy Community Secretariat and Director Alberto Pototschnig on behalf of the Agency.
After the signing, Director Pototschnig commented that “this is an important step forward in the cooperation with the Energy Community Secretariat at a time when we aim to extend the internal energy market to include our European eastern neighbours as part of the Energy Union strategy”.
Mr Kopač remarked “The signature of the agreement does not only pave the way for further intensifying cooperation between the Energy Community Secretariat and the Agency, it will also allow for closer cooperation between EU and Energy Community Contracting Parties’ regulators that is pivotal for creating an effective pan-European energy market”.
