In an interview with the British analytical agency ICIS, Sergiu Lica, head of the gas trading department at the state-owned wholesale operator Energocom, stated that the new rules could highlight growing tensions between the structure of the EU market and the regulatory realities faced by the contracting parties of the Energy Community.
Under the new regime, gas transmission system operators will be required to offer bundled products at interconnection points with third countries, including the Moldovan-Romanian border. Similar rules will also apply between the contracting parties of the Energy Community, including the Moldovan-Ukrainian border.
This measure aims to simplify cross-border gas transmission by combining incoming and outgoing capacities into a single product, optimizing the booking process, and facilitating trade at virtual hubs rather than at physical borders.
There Are Challenges
However, Lica noted that the legal and tax frameworks underpinning bundled capacities within the EU are largely absent in Moldova and other Energy Community jurisdictions.
He said that Energocom is prepared to comply with the rules, but other, smaller companies already operating in the region could be squeezed out, which would limit much-needed regional competition.
Complications may arise due to a number of barriers related to differences between EU and Energy Community jurisdictions.
The first relates to licensing rules.
For example, a Moldovan company seeking direct access to the interconnection points on the Romanian border must comply with Romanian licensing rules, which require non-EU companies to establish a local representative office.
An EU-based company could avoid this requirement, but it would still have to post a financial guarantee of approximately 1 million euros. According to Lika, this would be costly.
The second issue identified concerns the tax regime at the border with Ukraine, where the implementation of a interconnected capacity system has already begun. EU traders can gain access to the Ukrainian transmission system through special customs agreements, but participating in the country’s virtual trading hub requires a full import transaction, which entails a 20% value-added tax that is currently non-refundable.
Lica placed both barriers in a broader context: the discrepancy between the rules applied within the EU and those in effect at the border with countries outside the Union, including the Republic of Moldova, Serbia, and Ukraine. Since the issue of interconnection capacity is, in essence, a European one, it cannot be resolved solely through the intervention of national governments, he emphasized.
For now, only temporary solutions are possible
As future EU members, the Republic of Moldova and Ukraine must bring their legislation—including in the energy and fiscal sectors—into line with the European acquis communautaire.
However, until their accession to the EU—scheduled for 2030—the full implementation of the interconnected capacity concept remains blocked due to the lack of a fiscal framework to support it within the EU.
