EU4Energy’s Event in Tbilisi
On October 4-5, Tbilisi hosted high-level talks within the EU4Energy Governance Project on the ongoing gas market reform in Georgia.
The EU4Energy Governance Project is a technical assistance project funded by the European Union, under the EU4Energy Initiative. This initiative covers all EU support to improve energy supply, security and connectivity as well as to promote energy efficiency and the use of renewables in the eastern Partnership countries (Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine). The project targets policymakers working in the energy sector of Eastern Partner countries and helps them strengthen their legislative and regulatory frameworks as well as identify investment opportunities in key energy infrastructure projects. Within this project, the Energy Community Secretariat is delivering technical assistance to three Eastern Partner countries: Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine, which are fully-fledged members of the Energy Community. Regional activities of the project also involve Armenia, Azerbaijan and Belarus.
High-level talks held in Tbilisi on October 4-5 follow last year’s similar discussions on raising Georgia’s energy efficiency in general and this year’s April meeting on highlighting opportunities of EU gas market reforms. GEORGIA TODAY spoke to gas expert Peter Pozsgai of the Energy Community Secretariat on how EU4Energy will reshape Georgia’s energy market.
Pozsgai stated, “the role of our organization is to help contracting parties, in this case Georgia, to implement energy and environment-related legislation”. For Georgia, Ukraine and Moldova, we have legally binding frameworks, whereas Armenia, Azerbaijan and Belarus are participating but do not fully enjoy those opportunities the former three do.”
Pozsgai also said that “in the Energy Community Secretariat, we work on legal aspects of various project implementations. Georgia used to be an observer in the Community and several years ago submitted a request for full membership.”
This program called the EU4Energy is a recent project which started in 2016. The host of the program is entirely the EU. This program is a successor to the previous one called INOGATE, which was also managed by the European Commission. EU4Energy program consists of five related components: energy policies, data and statistics, governance, transparency via a web portal and visibility through communications. These five components are outsourced to various external organizations.
“EU4Energy's governance component is a EUR 6.8 mln program for Eastern Partnership countries, Pozsgai said. “This component represents part of the EU4Energy's bigger, EUR 21 mln initiative, which also covers Central Asia. The EU4Energy's major aim is legislative and regulatory development as well as enhancement of investment climate for crucial energy infrastructure projects. We have several offices and one of them was opened in Tbilisi last year.”
The EU4Energy the two-day event was dedicated to increasing the potential of government bodies, representatives of the gas sector and other interested parties. This is also related to regulating the natural gas market and to the questions of organization, management and functioning.
The two-day event helped to improve the institutional framework of the policies that will be implemented in Georgia’s gas sector. The discussion at the event was also expected to help speed up the introduction of first and secondary legislation, which will regulate the activities within the gas sector and is commensurate with the 3rd Energy Package.
The event was also about discussing how successfully the reform process of Georgia’s natural gas is going; the overall design of the market, its organizational structure and size as well as the existing challenges and future perspectives.
The EU4Energy event also involved the discussion of such important issues as the scope of the natural gas market, its structure and and retail prices, gas operators’ role, and gas market shareholders’ rights and obligations.
Pozsgai also told us that the natural gas reform which will be implemented in Georgia, beyond the obvious benefits, will also bring much market transparency, strengthen liquidity and competitiveness, and at the same time give consumers a chance around the country to choose or change their gas provider.
By Emil Avdaliani