BELGRADE (Serbia), January 17 (SeeNews) – The Energy Community, an organisation promoting the establishment of an integrated European energy market, has opened a dispute settlement procedure against Serbia over the lack of adoption of a National Emission Reduction Plan, it said.
The secretariat of the Vienna-based organisation has sent an opening letter to Serbia to address the incomplete implementation of the Large Combustion Plants Directive which requires that existing large combustion plants should either comply with the emission limit values for SO2, NOx and dust at individual plant level, or implement a National Emission Reduction Plan (NERP), the Energy Community said in a statement earlier this week.
Out of the sixteen existing large combustion plants in Serbia, nine are in the scope of the dispute settlement case as in the absence of a legally binding NERP, they have to comply with the emission limit values of the directive at individual level, the Energy Community said.
"By sending the Opening Letter, the Secretariat initiated a preliminary procedure, the purpose of which is to give Serbia the opportunity to react to the allegation of non-compliance with Energy Community law within two months and to enable the Secretariat to establish the full background of the case," the organisation noted.
The secretariat approved the draft NERP of Serbia in 2016. In the past years, the secretariat has repeatedly called upon the Serbian authorities for its adoption, which however has not happened, the Energy Community said.
The key objective of the Energy Community is to extend the EU internal energy market rules and principles to countries in Southeast Europe, the Black Sea region and beyond on the basis of a legally binding framework.