Minister of Energy, Development and Environmental Protection Zorana Mihajlovic announced that members of the Energy Community of South East Europe, which includes Serbia, will adopt a regional Energy Strategy at the ministerial council meeting in Budva tomorrow.
Mihajlovic told Beta news agency that the Strategy, whose adoption Serbia initiated several years ago, primarily refers to investments in at least two states and represents an attempt to bring energy safety and stability to countries in South East Europe.
The criteria will be determined and specified next year, and in line with them all regional projects will be drafted, the Minister said recalling that countries in the region do not have enough electricity, oil or gas.
Each country will propose projects, and as for Serbia, these will be projects relating to thermal energy, the use of hydro potential and renewable energy sources, she specified.
At the ministerial council meeting in Budva documents on the use of renewable energy sources, harmonisation of energy-related statistics and reserves of oil and oil derivatives will also be adopted.
Mihajlovic noted that Serbia will take up an obligation to increase its share of energy obtained from renewable sources in the total amount of consumed energy from 21.2% to 27% by 2020.
This will intensify the process of using renewable energy sources in Serbia, she remarked.
The Minister denied the allegations that energy efficiency and renewable energy sources have been neglected in the regional Energy Strategy.
It depends on each state what it will do regarding the utilisation of renewable energy sources. These sources cannot solve the issue of energy security, but can help, especially if we are talking about ecological security, she explained.
According to her, the members of the Energy Community will discuss at the meeting the undertaking of commitments on the harmonisation of energy statistics with the statistics of the EU countries and determining required reserves of oil and oil products.
Mihajlovic indicated that Serbia will undertake its obligations related to oil and oil products after a new law on commodity reserves is adopted.
Serbia will chair the Energy Community of South East Europe in 2013, which is very important for our country, she said, adding that Serbia will be able to suggest topics to be addressed by that organisation.
The Minister announced that at a meeting in Budva she will suggest topics to be addressed in the Energy Community next year, the first being energy security, which is related to the gas interconnection and electrical engineering.
Members of the Energy Community of South East Europe are Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Montenegro, Croatia, Macedonia, Serbia, UNMIK/Kosovo, Moldova, Ukraine and the EU.
Source Serbia Gov.
