The draft act aiming at (i) the establishment of a different tarifary system for transit activities in Belgium and (ii) interpreting indirectly article 32.1 of the Second Gas Directive was approved last week by the competent commission of the Belgian Senate.
Thursday, 5 February 2009
New Transit Act Almost Finally Adopted By Parliament
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3 comments:
Do you think the European Commission will take any action on this, given that it believes having a separate transit regime is discriminatory? Didn't the Belgian Courts have the same view as well?
DG Energy has stated in a letter to the Court of Appeal of Brussels that when analysing the historical contracts one has to look at both contractual parties and to evaluate whether they do fall under the categories mentioned in the Transit Directive (entities responsible for high pressure natural gas grids or entities responsible for the import or export of natural gas in a member state). This said, DG Energy did not want to give any statement on the qualification of Distrigas & co as a legal successor of Distrigas.
With regard to the new tarifary system, it goes without saying that transit is a transport service in the meaning of the Second Gas Directive. However, I do think that a differentiation can be made between different categories of transport services, as long as the principle of equality is respected.
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