Energy Traders Europe’s 2025 Gas Hub Scorecard delivers a blunt message for European gas markets: integration has not failed, but it has become increasingly uneven. The strongest hubs are moving toward deeper liquidity, better price formation and more credible trading conditions, while several eastern and south-eastern markets remain constrained by weak transparency, limited market-based balancing, administrative barriers and the dominant position of incumbent structures.
The report evaluates 18 emerging European gas hubs from a trader’s perspective, looking not only at formal regulatory compliance but at whether a market actually works for price discovery, competition, balancing and cross-border trading. Its scoring framework covers institutional and regulatory criteria, operational design and performance indicators such as standardised contracts, brokers, exchanges, market makers, hub liquidity and whether the hub price is reliable enough to be used as a benchmark. The total score is out of 20 points, with markets scoring 15 or more generally considered relatively mature and therefore outside the main focus of the current emerging-hub assessment.
The clearest conclusion is that Europe now has a visible north-east versus south-east divide in gas-market development. The Baltic states, Finland, Ireland, Greece and Hungary are assessed as the strongest performers among the emerging hubs, with Lithuania and Ireland at 14.5 points, Estonia, Finland, Greece, Latvia and Hungary close behind, while several eastern and Balkan markets remain materially weaker. Serbia is the most striking case: the appendix gives Serbia only 3.5 out of 20, the lowest score among the assessed markets.
That ranking matters beyond gas trading. A weak gas hub is not just a problem for wholesale traders. It affects industrial buyers, power generators, balancing-cost expectations, cross-border risk premiums, LNG optionality, storage economics and the bankability of gas-to-power or industrial decarbonisation projects. In markets where a transparent hub price does not exist, where brokers and market makers are thin, and where balancing is not fully market-based, energy buyers cannot easily hedge, lenders cannot easily model forward exposure and investors face higher uncertainty around fuel costs.
The 2025 Scorecard shows that progress is possible where reform is consistent. The Baltic states and Finland have moved close to maturity despite having started liberalisation later than many older EU markets. Their improvement is linked to clearer market rules, stronger transparency, effective balancing and constructive engagement between authorities and traders. Greece is another notable case, overtaking Hungary as the best-performing gas hub in south-eastern Europe, helped by enabling pure trading activity and attracting price reporting agencies, even though the Greek gas exchange was established later than those in several other EU countries.
The negative lesson is just as important. Hungary, previously one of the region’s top performers, declined because of weaker transparency, shorter consultation windows and limited use of English in market dialogue. Romania improved in some performance indicators, including greater use of standardised contracts and BRM’s integration with Trayport, but remains held back by windfall taxation and uncertainty over licensing. Bulgaria and Moldova made modest progress, yet the report warns that the “Route 1” point-to-point capacity product on the Trans-Balkan route may fragment regional liquidity by allowing transactions to bypass national markets in Bulgaria, Romania and Moldova.
For Serbia, the implications are uncomfortable. The country appears in the declining or stagnating eastern European cluster, with weak scores across several market-design categories. According to the detailed appendix, Serbia receives only 0.5 for transparency and consultation, 0.5 for entry-exit system establishment, 0.5 for title transfer, 0.5 for cashout rules, 0 for TSO system balancing, 0 for licensing and reporting obligations, 0 for market interference, 0 for resolving structural and concentration issues, 0.5 for NRA or hub fees, and 0 for establishing a reference hub price for contractual settlement. It also receives 0 for standardised contracts, daily price reporting agencies, market makers, brokers, exchange establishment, hub benchmark reliability and spot liquidity.
This is not simply a technical scorecard problem. It means Serbia’s gas market still lacks many of the features that allow a hub to become a useful economic instrument. Without a reliable benchmark price, market participants are pushed toward bilateral arrangements, incumbent-linked supply logic, import-indexed pricing or administratively shaped procurement. Without market-based balancing, the system does not create the same incentives for portfolio discipline and short-term liquidity. Without brokers, market makers and visible spot liquidity, there is no deep forward curve that banks, traders or industrial consumers can use to price risk.
The commercial consequence is a higher energy-risk premium for Serbian industry. Large consumers in fertilisers, chemicals, district heating, power generation, food processing, metals and building materials need fuel-price visibility. If the gas market cannot produce transparent prices and liquid hedging instruments, companies face more volatile budgeting and weaker negotiating leverage against suppliers. For projects seeking project finance, this becomes a modelling issue: lenders will either apply conservative fuel-price assumptions, require stronger sponsor support, or discount projects where gas input exposure cannot be hedged credibly.
The Scorecard’s wider recommendation is therefore directly relevant for Serbia and the Western Balkans. Energy Traders Europe argues that national authorities should improve transparency and stakeholder engagement, use open consultations preferably in English, prioritise market-based balancing, reduce burdensome licensing and reporting barriers, address incumbent dominance and avoid wholesale market interventions that distort price formation. These are not abstract liberalisation slogans; they are the minimum institutional conditions needed to convert a gas network into a functioning gas market.
For Serbia, the reform agenda would have to start with the fundamentals. The country needs a clearer virtual trading point structure, non-discriminatory access to network capacity, transparent balancing rules, visible market-based imbalance settlement, standardised contracts, a simpler licensing environment and stronger publication of market data. The emergence of a price reference would be especially important. Without a credible Serbian gas hub price, the market remains dependent on external benchmarks and bilateral import terms rather than generating its own domestic signal.
The regional context makes this more urgent. Serbia sits between increasingly interconnected electricity and gas corridors, with Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania and Croatia all shaping its import options and price exposure. LNG access through Greece and Croatia, interconnection with Bulgaria, future regional gas flows and the changing role of Russian pipeline supply all increase the value of market flexibility. But infrastructure alone does not create liquidity. A pipeline connection can diversify physical supply, yet if market rules remain opaque or administratively constrained, the trading premium is limited.
There is also a power-market angle. Serbia’s electricity system is still heavily exposed to coal, but gas can play an increasing role in balancing, industrial heat, district energy and potentially future flexible generation. A weak gas hub increases the cost of that transition because it reduces the ability to price gas flexibly against power, carbon, renewables and storage. In an energy system increasingly shaped by renewables, CBAM exposure, power-market volatility and cross-border price spreads, gas-market opacity becomes a competitiveness issue.
The Scorecard also shows that market participants remain interested even in imperfect markets. The report notes that stagnation in regional gas hub development comes mainly from weak institutional, regulatory and operational progress, not from lack of market engagement. That is an important distinction. Traders, suppliers and industrial consumers are not absent because the region is irrelevant; they are constrained because the operating environment does not yet give them enough confidence.
For Serbia, this creates both a warning and an opportunity. The warning is that a 3.5/20 score places the country at the bottom of the assessed European hub-development table. The opportunity is that the reform pathway is visible. The Baltics and Greece show that later-stage liberalisation can still produce rapid improvement when authorities, TSOs and traders align around transparent rules, open consultation and credible market infrastructure.
The next stage for Serbia should not be framed only as compliance with European energy-market norms. It should be framed as an industrial competitiveness programme. A functioning gas hub would reduce energy-risk premiums, improve procurement options for industrial consumers, strengthen the investment case for flexible energy assets, support regional trading and give banks a clearer basis for financing gas-dependent or transition-related infrastructure.
The Energy Traders Europe report is therefore more than a hub ranking. It is a map of where energy-market confidence is being created and where it is being lost. Serbia’s position shows that physical interconnection and formal market opening are not enough. The market needs transparent rules, liquid instruments, credible balancing, accessible licensing, price reporting and a reference price that counterparties can actually use. Until those conditions improve, Serbia will remain a strategically located gas market without the liquidity architecture needed to turn that position into pricing power.
