June 4 (SeeNews) - Serbia is in talks with the Energy Community over the country's failure to meet some of the conditions for the construction of a gas pipeline from the border with Bulgaria to the border with Hungary, energy minister Aleksandar Antic has said.
The government hopes to find a common solution that would satisfy all stakeholders in the project, Antic said on Monday, according to a Serbian government press release.
Last month, the director of the Energy Community Secretariat Janez Kopac said the organisation may take legal action against Serbia over the country's failure to meet the conditions for construction of the gas pipeline, an extension of Gazprom's TurkStream pipeline to Europe via the territories of Bulgaria, Serbia and Hungary.
"Serbia's energy regulatory agency did not respect some of our exemption rules and the project is going forward," Kopac said.
Serbia's energy regulatory agency approved in March an exemption from the requirements of the European Union's Third Energy Package of the project for the construction of an extension of Gazprom's TurkStream natural gas pipeline on Serbia's territory. In making the decision, the energy regulator took into account the opinion of the Energy Community on the exemption of the natural gas pipeline project, to be implemented by Gastrans company, from certain requirements of the Third Energy Package.
Gastrans is 100%-owned by Swiss-based South Stream Serbia, according to data from Serbia's commercial register. Russia's Gazprom owns a 51% stake in South Stream Serbia, while state-owned Srbijagas holds the remaining 49%, according to Gazprom data.