CEZ, negotiations about to fail

Despite the creation of the task force and other legal interventions for improving the indicators, and despite the first results of increased encasing and lower losses, the measures seem still insufficient for eliminating the risk of public finances.

The energy sector is facing an unstable financial situation, and needs a more essential and direct intervention. After removing the permit of CEZ, the legal status of the distribution company remains unsolved.

Since the beginning of the conflict between the Albanian government and the Czech company leaders, there is a lack of investments in the distribution network, except for the network maintenance.

The Albanian government is holding a negotiation with the Czech managers of CEZ in order to resolve the legal conflict, while confidential sources say that the Czech managers have demanded more than 200 million EUR.

Same sources say that the persistence of the Czech managers on this figure has been encouraged by the fact that the positions of the Albanian government are weaker, because since when the permit was removed and until September, after the parliamentary elections, the Albanian government did nothing for evaluating assets and for expropriations, while the Czech managers advanced by filing the arbitrary lawsuit first.

The financial inability and the categorical refusal of the Albanian part to pay any of this quantities, are increasing the chances of a possible failure of the negotiations.

But in this unclear situation, while the government is still waiting for a loan from the World Bank with 150 million USD for recovering the energy sector, it seems that it is imperative to resolve the legal situation with CEZ, to make way for other investments from the World Bank, the government and other donators, in order to guarantee stability and liquidate the sector.

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