Post by Erëza Vela

CBAM sounds like something only experts should care about. It is not. At its simplest, #CBAM adds a carbon-related cost to certain imports into the EU. For #electricity, this changes the commercial logic of cross-border trade. Energy Community Secretariat’s most downloaded publication of the year so far, The CBAM Q1/2026 Report, looks at what happened in Q1 2026: wider price spreads, lower commercial exchanges across EU–Western Balkan borders, and signs of trade shifting towards routes where CBAM costs do not apply. The early picture is interesting. #WesternBalkan electricity was, in many cases, cheaper than electricity in neighbouring EU markets. Under normal market logic, cheaper electricity should flow towards higher-priced markets. But CBAM changes that calculation. Once carbon-related costs are added, the commercial incentive to trade can shrink or disappear. It is like finding a cheaper flight, but then adding luggage, seat selection and airport transfers. Suddenly, the “cheap” option is not that cheap anymore. CBAM can work a bit like that for electricity imports: the market price may look attractive, but the added carbon cost changes the calculation. This helps explain why the report finds wider price spreads, lower commercial exchanges across EU–WB6 borders, and signs that trade patterns are shifting towards routes where CBAM costs do not apply. The #Montenegro–Italy example makes this very concrete. The price difference favoured exports from Montenegro to Italy, but scheduled flows declined. There is also an important competitiveness angle. Countries with low-carbon electricity, such as #Albania in this quarter, are in a stronger position because their CBAM cost can be zero. More coal-dependent systems - hello Kosovo, my home country! - face higher default costs, which can weaken their competitiveness even when market prices look favourable. As a communications person, this is the part I always look for: where does the technical issue touch people and businesses? Because it does. For citizens, less efficient electricity trade can eventually mean higher system costs — and those costs can find their way into network tariffs and bills. For businesses, especially energy-intensive ones, it affects competitiveness, planning and investment. And for the region, it matters for the energy transition: clear rules can support renewables; unclear signals can slow investment. So, CBAM is not only a carbon policy story for experts. For electricity, it is also about markets, competitiveness, investment — and how technical rules eventually reach real life. We unpack this in more detail in our report prepared by my colleagues Péter Pozsgai and Martin Martinoski 👉 https://bit.ly/4dMjKDe Photo: from the days when I used to discuss topics like this on my national TV show. Different format, same interest in making complex issues easier to understand.