prijava
SARAJEVO, January 14 (FENA) - As part of a thematic session in the House of Representatives of the Parliament of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina entitled "Meeting the obligations of BiH under the Energy Community Treaty - implementation status in the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina", a meeting of legislative and executive representatives was held with Director of the Energy Community Secretariat, Janez Kopač.
After the meeting, Minister of Energy, Mining and Industry in the Government of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina Nermin Džindić told reporters that it was agreed at the meeting on how to present the fulfillment of Bosnia and Herzegovina's obligations to the Energy Community.
He added that his proposal was that the meeting or session should have taken place in the House of Representatives of the BiH Parliament, not at the level of the Federation of BiH, given that BiH is a signatory to the agreement, "and that this topic should definitely be discussed in terms of what we have fulfilled as a state."
“We even made one comparison of the fulfillment of obligations with the entity of Republika Srpska. So, today we will show on an example of eight areas or eight laws, transposed into the legislation of BiH or the Federation of BiH, what we have done and how much we have fulfilled of our obligations,” said Minister Džindić.
He says that according to some analysis they have done in the last month, in preparation for today's thematic session of the House of Representatives of the FBiH Parliament, the fulfillment of the obligations of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina is somewhere at the level of 80 percent.
He noted that they have a deadlock on the implementation of the Electricity and Gas Law.
“Our initiative will be to separate this law into two laws - an electricity law that has already been substantially harmonized between the two entities and in particular the gas law, since we are witnessing that the electricity law was a 'hostage' for several years of the situation of blocking the adoption of the law n natural gas,” Minister Džindić said.
As for other things, he cited the European Energy Community's objection to the construction of Block 7 of the Tuzla Thermal Power Plant.
“We did a complete case analysis. Today, on behalf of the Government of the Federation of BiH and the line ministry, and on behalf of Elektroprivreda BiH, we will present the way in which the guarantee for the execution of this project was obtained. We will also show all the documents that show that the Federation of BiH has done everything in accordance with the law and the rules as is required of us,” said Džindić.
He added that the presentation they received last night from Janez Kopač shows that he did not have all information, and today they will try together in the House of Representatives to reach synchronized and mutually agreed conclusions that will lead the Federation of BiH to meet the rest of the 20 percent of obligations in 2020.
“We expect Janez Kopač to explain in his presentation, why he believes, on behalf of the Secretariat of the Energy Community, that there are elements of state aid in this project, and then we will show why we think differently and have complied with every part of the law that has treated this area,” said the departmental minister.
As for the law on natural gas, he stated that in the working version of the law, at the end of 2016, that law was to enter into parliamentary procedure, that is, the procedure of adoption by the Council of Ministers of BiH, and that the RS and the Federation of BiH then gave a positive and conditionally positive opinions.
“The Republika Srpska entity gave a positive opinion because the Ministry of Foreign Trade and Economic Relations, together with the Secretariat of the Energy Community, accepted all comments from the RS Government. Once all the objections have been accepted, it is normal that you give your consent or positive opinion. The Government of the Federation of BiH gave a positive opinion, with one condition, that the law drafted by the working group was then drafted, to be submitted to the regular procedure at the Council of Ministers of BiH, to be reviewed by the Legislation Office, Ministry of Justice, Ministry of Finance and assess the constitutionality of the law, considering that we found in some five elements that the law was unconstitutional,” said Minister Džindić.
Unfortunately, he added, the law encountered blockades and rejection in the BiH Council of Ministers.
“I hope that today’s proposal for the separation of the law on electricity and the law on natural gas would be supported and that we will finally get the law on electricity very soon, which is fully harmonized and may already be this month proposed in the BiH Council of Ministers. The law on gas needs a new working version, developed through two working groups, including FERC, SERC and all other regulators that monitor this area that will define the state's competences over the gas sector,” explained Džindić.
(FENA) S. R.
