On Friday, 27 June 2008 in Brussels, the Energy Community Ministerial Council addressed key issues for the functioning of electricity markets in South-East Europe. At this occasion, Commissioner Piebalgs declared: "Last week the European Council reiterated its full support for the European perspective of the Western Balkans and the importance of regional cooperation: the Energy Community is becoming a success story in this respect, but efforts should be pursued."

The Ministers and Representatives of the Energy Community Contracting Parties (Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, Montenegro, Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Serbia and Kosovo under UN Resolution 1244) and Commissioner Andris Piebalgs, representing the European Community, confirmed their strong commitment to achieve the goals of the Energy Community Treaty. The Republic of Moldova, Ukraine, Turkey, Georgia and Norway also participated as observers.

The Ministerial Council reviewed the state of play of the implementation of the Treaty on the basis of the monitoring report established by the Vienna Secretariat and the information provided by the President of the Regulatory Board on market development. It was noted that very substantial progress was achieved and that particular attention shall be given to secondary legislation and enforcement. At regional level, specific efforts are needed to strengthen the regional dimension, in particular as regards electricity cross-border exchanges.

In this respect, Ministers decided to put in place at regional level a common procedure for the allocation of electrical capacity and for congestion management at borders. They invited the electricity transmission system operators and regulators to establish the corresponding agreements and mechanism by end of 2009. The regional management of interconnection capacity will greatly improve cross-border electricity exchanges and security of electricity supply in the region and will bring the region closer to EU market standards.

Besides, the Ministerial Council adopted the implementation rules for the dispute settlement mechanism foreseen in the Treaty. The dispute settlement mechanism will allow to address issues related in particular to the implementation of the relevant EU legislation in the Contracting parties and is expected to reinforce their binding character.

The Ministerial Council had an exchange of views concerning the security of supply status in the region and stressed the importance for the Contracting Parties to implement Directive 2005/89/EC concerning measures to safeguard security of electricity supply and Directive 2004/67/EC concerning measures to safeguard security of natural gas supply before 31 December 2009 as decided. For this purpose, the Ministerial Council had a first exchange of views on the establishment of a regional security of supply cooperation group, which composition and remits will be discussed at the next Ministerial Council meeting in December in Tirana.

Finally, the Ministerial Council agreed to further explore the possibility to develop an Oil Dimension within the Energy Community with two main components:

• First, the establishment of an Oil Forum should allow discussing and promoting regional oil infrastructure projects and the development of the oil markets in the region.
• Second, the oil dimension should allow implementing the EU legislation in relation with the oil sector.