Case 

On 16 January 2018, the Energy Community Secretariat sent an Opening Letter to Ukraine in accordance with Article 12 of the Rules of Procedure for Dispute Settlement. In the Opening Letter, the Secretariat takes the preliminary view that Ukraine failed to fulfill its obligations under the Energy Community Treaty by failing to transpose the requirements of Article 26 of Electricity Directive 2009/72/EC on legal and functional unbundling of electricity distribution system operators  in line with the deadline of 1 January 2015 required by the acquis and by failing to adopt, within the prescribed time limit, the national measures to ensure legal and functional unbundling of the national electricity distribution system operators in practise.

Procedure

By its Opening Letter, the Secretariat initiated a preliminary procedure, the purpose of which is giving Ukraine the possibility to react to the allegation of non-compliance with Energy Community law, and enabling the Secretariat to establish the full factual and legal background of the case. Ukraine has been given two months to comply of its own accord with the requirements of the Treaty or to justify its position.

According to the Rules of Procedure for Dispute Settlement, interested parties may be granted access to the case file and may submit written observations on the present case to the Secretariat within one month from 16 January 2018.

Following the unbundling of the DSOs in Ukraine, and based on information provided by the national regulatory of Ukraine, NEURC, the Secretariat came to a conclusion that all electricity distribution system operators of Ukraine have been unbundled in line with the requirements of the Energy Community acquis communautaire and, more specifically, Article 26 of Directive 2009/72/EC. Thus Ukraine complied with its obligations under the Energy Community Treaty and the Secretariat decided to close the case.