A country in Moldova’s situation needs to urgently have its energy sector reformed as this sector works mainly in a nontransparent way, with less efficient bodies, said Deputy Director of the Energy Community Secretariat Dirk Buschle. In an interview for Radio Free Europe, Buschle said the reformation of the energy sector is an objective that must be achieved by a member state of the Energy Community. This objective became in fact a precondition for the financing needed, for example, for modernizing the energy infrastructure, to be provided by such institutions as the EIB, EBRD and the World Bank.

“As a precondition, the investors demand reforming the sector and consider that the membership in the Energy Community, which Moldova has, it a guarantee that the reforms will be completed,” said Dirk Buschle. He noted that the legislation should be amended and the Energy Community is ready to provide support. Alongside the Moldovan authorities, the Energy Community Secretariat drafted a bill on electric power and natural gas in accordance with the so-called Third Energy Package. The bill is now debated publicly and, if it’s implemented, Moldova will take a step forward in the process of reforming the sector.

Dirk Buschle also said that he will visit Chisinau on July 10 to discuss with the Moldovan authorities. “We must first of all agree what can be done and how to swiftly deal with the situation together. As I said, if a distribution tariff for the three suppliers is not set, no progress in doing reforms will be made. We expect that the National Agency for Energy Regulation will do this and we are ready to offer our assistance. I hope that this Friday we will manage to reach an agreement concerning the conditions and will be able to immediately overcome this situation,” he stated.

The Energy Community is an association of the EU member states, on the one hand, and non-EU member states, such as Moldova, Ukraine and other countries from Southeastern Europe, on the other hand.