Serbia and the EU will participate in the joint purchase of gas

2023-05-10 08:29:00, Kosova & Bota CNA

Serbia and the EU will participate in the joint purchase of gas

Illustrative photo

The European Union is preparing for the joint purchase of gas to avoid buying gas from Russia, which was the largest supplier in the EU at 45 percent. Since the beginning of the war in Ukraine, Europe has tried in every way to reduce its dependence on Russian energy sources, and is now also inviting some non-EU countries to buy gas together.

Serbia is among them. The joint purchase of gas would raise questions as to whether Serbia would distance itself politically from Russia as well.

Bearing in mind that the diversification of directions and sources of supply is a strategic commitment of Serbia, readiness to participate in this joint purchase has been expressed, the Ministry of Mines and Energy told Euronews Serbia.

The Ministry clarifies that members of the Energy Community, including Serbia, are invited to express their interest in participating in the joint purchase. They say that the Public Company Srbijagas has applied to the PRIZMA platform, which is a prerequisite for participating in the joint purchase, which will be done in succession.

According to the Ministry, the European Commission has created a platform for the joint purchase of gas with member countries to ensure the EU's energy supply at affordable prices.

"The purpose of the platform is to help coordinate the purchase of gas, using collective bargaining and the political power of the EU, to ensure supply at stable prices for EU citizens and businesses. Also, this mechanism aims to avoid offers from EU companies for the same gas. and consequently increases the price", say the Ministry of Mines and Energy of Serbia.

Energy experts believe that "group buying" lowers the price, but it could still be more expensive for Serbia in the end because it is liquefied gas. That is, the price of liquid gas itself is higher than that of Russian gas, and if a better price can be achieved even with joint purchase, the cost of transporting it, i.e. sending it to users in Serbia, there is additional growth.

This is why they emphasize the need for Serbia to continue diversifying its resources, regardless of which side it chooses. On the other hand, in the EU National Convention, they believe that classifying gas with the EU would politically distance Serbia from Russia and reduce the political room for maneuver of the Serbian authorities.

"Certainly, it would somehow reduce the space for arguments for not imposing further sanctions or any other change in Serbia's foreign policy, because until now the main argument of our government was that Serbia is not able to change. its course in such a demonstrative way precisely because of this energy dependence on Russia", Bojana Selakovi? of Serbia from the National Convention for the EU told Euronews.

However, he underlines, no one in Serbia has yet explicitly said that Serbia is on the side of the West, even though the EU is primarily trying to draw Serbia to its side through energy.

"We see packages of financial support mainly in the field of energy, which is the most vulnerable area through which Russian influence has manifested itself in some way here," Selakovic said.

Serbia is energetically vulnerable, according to experts, therefore it is necessary to continue diversifying its resources.

The general director of Srbijagas said that gas consumption in Serbia has increased by 20 percent compared to the period three or four years ago and that consumption is expected to exceed three billion cubic meters of gas in 2024.

"Since three or four years ago, when we used a couple of billion and maybe even less, now we have increased the consumption since that period by 20 percent. We also expect these connections that we mentioned to increase to 320,000 or 330,000, and in the next two or three years to about 400,000 or 420,000 individual gas connections.

Therefore, given the number of factories whose construction has been announced and put into operation, and all of them are looking for gas, we expect that maybe next year the consumption will certainly exceed three billion cubic meters of gas," Bajatovic said. .

The official plan, he adds, is for Serbia to spend 4.7 billion in 2030, most of which is in industry./ CNA.al