September 16 (SeeNews) - Serbian state-owned power grid operator Elektromreze Srbije (EMS) and its Kosovar counterpart KOSTT have signed a so-called inter-transmission system operator agreement on network and system operation management, the Energy Community, a Vienna-based international energy policy organization, said on Tuesday.
The agreement, negotiated under the auspices of the Community's secretariat and with the support of the European Commission, brings to an end a controversy between the two operators on their bilateral relations dating back to the beginning of this century, the Energy Community said in a statement.
The inter-TSO agreement and its technical annexes implement the operational part of the framework agreement signed by both parties in Vienna earlier this year.
“[This] is a milestone in the cooperation not only between two companies but also for the normalisation between these contracting parties,” deputy director Dirk Buschle, who negotiated the agreements together with the secretariat’s electricity expert Andreas Pointvogl, said.
The next steps that are expected involve the finalization of further agreements between EMS and KOSTT, covering the compensation for transit flows and congestion revenues for this year, as well as discussions about KOSTT becoming a member of the European Network of Transmission System Operators (ENTSO-E).
The Energy Community was established by an international law treaty in October 2005. As of July 1, 2013, the parties to the treaty are the European Union and Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Kosovo, Macedonia, Moldova, Montenegro, Serbia and Ukraine.
Serbia's breakaway province of Kosovo declared independence unilaterally in 2008.
The progress of Serbia's EU integration is tied to mending relations with Pristina whose independence it has vowed never to recognize.