August 15 (SeeNews) - Croatia is among three EU member states discriminating against foreign gas pipeline operators, the World Trade Organisation (WTO) has found in a ruling squashing Russia's attempts to challenge EU gas market rules.
In 2014, Russia launched a dispute with the WTO, claiming that the EU's Third Energy Package discriminates against Russian pipeline transport services, service suppliers, and against Russian natural gas.
The WTO rejected most of these claims late last week, ruling in favour of the EU concerning the rules on unbundling, as well as on liquefied natural gas (LNG) and on upstream pipeline networks, it said in a statement.
The WTO, however, did find that regarding the third-country certification measure in the national implementing laws of Croatia, Hungary and Lithuania, the three countries violate the national treatment obligation under the general agreement on trade in services (GATS) by requiring a security of energy supply assessment prior to the certification of third-country transmission system operators, but not domestic ones.
The WTO's panel concluded that this measure results in arbitrary and unjustifiable discrimination but noted that the third-country certification requirements "could not reasonably have been expected" at the time Croatia, Hungary and Lithuania scheduled their commitments, pursuant to Article VI:5(a)(ii) of GATS.
"They each made commitments years before the third-country certification measure was enacted. It could not have been reasonable for Russia or other Members to expect that Croatia, Hungary or Lithuania would then act to limit those commitments," the WTO explained.
Article VI:5(a)(ii) reads: "In sectors in which a member has undertaken specific commitments, pending the entry into force of disciplines developed in these sectors pursuant to paragraph 4, the member shall not apply licensing and qualification requirements and technical standards that nullify or impair such specific commitments in a manner which could not reasonably have been expected of that member at the time the specific commitments in those sectors were made."
The European Commission responded by saying that WTO's ruling is an important positive outcome for the EU, but added that it will take a closer look at the documents.
"The Commission will now analyse the ruling in detail, in particular as regards a limited number of issues on which the WTO-compatibility of EU energy policy has still not been recognised," the EU's executive body said in a statement.
The Third Energy Package consists of EU legislation for integrating the internal energy market. It includes rules on, in particular, the separation of energy supply and generation from the operation of transmission networks (unbundling), non-discriminatory access to energy infrastructure and independence of national energy regulators.