MEF’26 Panel 1: High-Level Leadership Exchange “From Reform to Delivery: Building a Competitive and Resilient Energy Future.” How do we build a competitive, resilient, and green energy future?
At the Macedonian Energy Forum, regional leaders, diplomats, and experts discussed accelerating grid investments, renewable deployment, and EU-backed reforms in the Western Balkans. Speakers from Austria, Sweden, AD MEPSO, the Energy Community Secretariat, and the Prime Minister’s office highlighted how climate, security, health, and EU integration are now tied into one single agenda.
Selected quotes:
“The objectives of the [East-West transmission] corridor are to enhance regional security of supply, renewable integration, and also price stability… Within this corridor, North Macedonia plays a central role as a transit and integrative point between the eastern and also western electricity markets.” – Burim Latifi,General Manager, AD MEPSO
“Now the question is about location. Where are these locations where actually the renewables can be deployed? … We are trying to assist… to identify different GIS layers… and then the priority financing could be facilitated, and the fast deployment could be facilitated.” – Aleksandra Bujaroska, Energy Community Secretariat
“You need to invest in yourself, you need to build alliances, you need to diversify. That works for political security, but that certainly also works for energy security, but you need to do so in a smart way.”- Ola Sohlström, Ambassador of Sweden to North Macedonia
“Stepping up on energy efficiency, stepping up on climate, stepping up on reducing energy and increasing the efficiency of that is not only good environmental policy, it’s not only economic policy, it’s also good health policy.”- Ola Sohlström
“For North Macedonia, the energy transition is not only a sectorial priority, it is one of the clearest examples of how the reform agenda is translated into practical readiness for our European integration.”- Orhan Murtezani, Special Advisor to the Prime Minister of North Macedonia on EU Reform Agenda
