November 28 (SeeNews) - Montenegro has exempted the country's energy regulatory authority from the Law on Administration on the request of the Energy Community Secretariat, the Energy Community said.
Following the intervention by the Energy Community Secretariat, later supported also by the European Commission, the energy regulatory authority REGAGEN was exempted from the Law on Administration, which guarantees its full independence, the Energy Community said in a statement on Tuesday.
"The reform of the Montenegrin Energy Law in January 2016 significantly strengthened the independence of REGAGEN whose autonomy has been subject to infringements before. The regulator also in practice today ranks among the most independent and proactive Energy Community regulatory authorities... Any limitations to its independent performance would have been a severe backlash against these achievements," the deputy director and legal counsel of the Energy Community Secretariat, Dirk Buschle, said.
The Energy Community Secretariat had objected to the adoption of a Law on Administration which would have significantly reduced the independence of REGAGEN on November 8.
In its correspondence to the Parliament of Montenegro, the Secretariat stressed that administrative reforms may not run counter to the obligations of Montenegro under the Energy Community rules among which true regulatory independence as driver for successful energy market liberalisation ranks very high, the Energy Community said.
The proposal for the Law on Administration had been tabled by the Montenegrin government upon recommendation of a consultancy programme for structural reforms of the administrative sector of Montenegro.