Energy law to be adopted once government is formed

BELGRADE - Adviser to Serbia's energy minister Nenad Ilic said on Wednesday the new energy bill would be delivered to the parliament doe adoption right after the creation of the next government.

Serbia will have to implement the "third energy set" in the coming period, that is the new European regulations related to energy, so the new law will be in line with those regulations, he said at a conference of the Central European Development Forum (CEDEF).

The law will remove administrative obstacles to investments in the energy sector, and the Ministry of Energy is already in negotiations with potential investors, he stressed.

There are also negotiations on the implementation of the Power Purchase Agreement, which includes subsidies on the purchase price of enregy received from renewable sources, he noted.

Serbia consumes 4-5 times more energy than EU countries and 2-3 times more than the countries of the region, Energy minister's adviser in charge of energy efficiency Mirjana Knezevic stated. There are large emmissions of greenhouse gases originating in the energy sector, that is 76 percent, she remarked, adding that 300,000-400,000 facilities did not have proper thermal insulation, resulting in energy being wasted.

Serbia needs to start consuming energy in a rational way and bring that consumption down to at least the average level in the region, she pointed out.

Head of the CEDEF management board Jovanka Arsic Karisic underscored that Serbia was importing more than 33 percent of its energy needs, and that the share of renewable energy in the overall consumption should be 27 percent by 2020.

The average annual growth rate of the demand for energy in Southeastern Europe is 2.3 percent, which...