The question of who truly controls electricity in South-East Europe is not really about megawatts alone. It is about who controls movement, who controls visibility, who absorbs risk and who can turn fragmented national markets into a single tradable system. When you step back and examine Albania, North Macedonia and Montenegro together with Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Romania, Hungary and Bulgaria, the picture becomes clearer: liquidity is created by depth, cross-border power is created by infrastructure and institutional maturity, and price discovery is shaped by those players and countries capable of translating multiple regional realities into coherent market signals. The story of SEE electricity trading is therefore a layered one, where states, exchanges, traders, interconnections and technology each exercise power differently, but not equally.
At first glance, electricity markets in SEE still look national. Each country has its own utility, transmission operator, regulator, legacy assets and political story. But electricity does not respect borders. In reality, these markets form a system: Bosnia’s generation feeds Serbia and Montenegro in critical moments, Bulgaria and Romania influence regional baseload expectations, Hungary anchors price benchmarks, Croatia is an EU-integrated bridge, and smaller Balkan states swing between being export corridors and deficit markets depending on season, hydrology and capacity availability. Understanding who shapes liquidity and price discovery means following these invisible lines.
Hungary is the first structural anchor. It is not only a national market but the main price benchmark for Central and South-East Europe. HUPX has depth, transparency and integration with European financial products, which makes Hungarian prices the gravitational centre for traders structuring positions across SEE. Most trading strategies in the Balkans begin with a Hungarian reference, whether implicitly in pricing or explicitly in hedging structures. Hungary connects to Austria, Slovakia, Romania, Serbia, Croatia and Slovenia, which turns it into a distribution hub of price signals. The largest European and global trading institutions concentrate significant capital and algorithmic capabilities here. In practice, this makes Hungary the place where the region’s “real” price is formed, with SEE countries adjusting around it rather than defining it.
Romania forms the second major pillar. Unlike most Balkan markets, Romania has true scale, significant generation diversity, a serious renewables expansion and an increasingly mature trading culture. OPCOM’s day-ahead and intraday markets function with meaningful liquidity. Romania’s location matters enormously: it is connected to Hungary, Bulgaria, Serbia, Ukraine and Moldova, meaning price movements here spread outward quickly. Romania’s system flexibility, its RES volatility and its integration with wider EU market mechanisms draw in every major European trader—Axpo, Alpiq, MET, Statkraft Trading, Danske Commodities, GEN-I, EFT and others—because Romania is both a source of risk and an arena for monetising that risk. Crucially, Romania is not responding to SEE pricing pressure; rather, it increasingly helps set it. When Romania is tight, SEE feels it. When Romania exports heavily, spreads shift. Liquidity power here is therefore real market depth: Romania shapes flows because it has enough size, enough interconnections and enough trading functionality to matter beyond its borders.
Bulgaria is the volatile bridge. IBEX provides price discovery, but Bulgaria’s significance comes from its system structure: nuclear, lignite and hydro combined with strategic connections to Greece, Turkey, Romania, Serbia and North Macedonia. Bulgaria often acts as a stabiliser or disturbance amplifier depending on external conditions. When Greece is under pressure, Bulgaria exports south. When Romanian conditions shift, Bulgarian spreads adjust rapidly. When Turkish imports swing, Bulgaria becomes a corridor absorbing the shock. Bulgaria’s price signals matter not because the market is astronomically large, but because it sits at a junction of multiple systems. Traders love Bulgaria because volatility creates opportunity, and opportunity attracts the strongest trading desks. That combination ultimately strengthens Bulgaria’s role in regional price discovery: many Balkan positions are implicitly hedged or benchmarked against Bulgarian exposure.
Serbia is the regional anchor in the Western Balkans proper. EPS remains one of the most influential utilities in South-East Europe: when it needs imports, regional prices react; when it exports strongly, neighbouring markets feel downward pressure. Serbia’s electricity exchange (SEEPEX / now evolving under the ADEX framework with Greece) has transformed the region by providing structured, transparent price discovery and clear routing signals. Serbia also physically connects almost everyone—Bosnia, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Croatia—which makes it unavoidable in trade flows. If Hungary and Romania are the “market gravity” centres of the region, Serbia is the operational heart of Balkan trading logistics. Every major trading house has either licensing, operations or significant trading relationships tied to Serbia. In that sense, Serbia does not merely consume and produce power; it organises the movement of it.
Bosnia and Herzegovina is an unexpectedly powerful actor because of something very simple: Bosnia exports. In a region where many countries must periodically import to secure winter stability or dry-season balance, Bosnia’s consistent export orientation gives it strategic relevance. The tri-utility structure—EPBiH, EP HZHB and ERS—creates a fragmented internal institutional environment, but externally it delivers supply. Bosnia’s hydro and thermal assets anchor it as a supplier into Serbia, Croatia, Montenegro and occasionally deeper into Central Europe. Much of Bosnian power still moves through structured bilateral arrangements rather than pure exchange mechanisms, which benefits traders with deep regional roots, long-standing relationships and tolerance for political risk. Influence here is not expressed through market platforms; it is expressed through the ability to secure long-term access to Bosnian production. Whoever does so gains leverage over regional shortfalls.
Croatia, meanwhile, is the EU-anchored bridge between Western Balkan fluidity and Central European structural discipline. CROPEX’s coupling with European power markets, HOPS’ professional system management, and Croatia’s active integration storage and renewable ambitions place the country firmly inside the EU power ecosystem rather than at the periphery. This gives Croatia an important signalling role: its prices are influenced by EU liquidity and by SEE volatility simultaneously. Croatia connects Slovenia, Hungary, Serbia and Bosnia. Its utility, HEP, is not simply a domestic monopsony player but an experienced regional trader. As a result, Croatia shapes liquidity as a stabilising translator between European market logic and Balkan operational realities. It is where Balkan power becomes European and European price becomes Balkan-usable.
When you combine these six countries—Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia—you essentially see the architecture upon which Albania, North Macedonia and Montenegro depend. Albania’s hydrological volatility makes it reliant on strong regional traders and neighbouring liquidity pools. North Macedonia’s cross-border positioning between Serbia, Bulgaria and Greece slots it directly inside this matrix: pricing there is often a derived function of what happens in Serbia, Bulgaria and Hungary. Montenegro’s role is unique because of the Italy cable and its integration trajectory: although small in demand terms, it becomes disproportionately important as a transit and arbitrage platform between SEE and Italian markets. All three smaller markets therefore do not exist independently—they are shaped by, priced by and connected through the larger SEE system.
The next question is: which companies actually exercise control within this structure? Here, patterns are consistent across all these countries. The dominant players are a cluster of elite pan-European and regional trading houses: EFT, GEN-I, Axpo, Statkraft’s trading arm, Alpiq, Danske Commodities, MET Group, occasionally joined by global commodity giants like Vitol or Trafigura, and supported by specialised regionals and strong national utilities. Their influence rests on five factors.
First is portfolio breadth. These firms operate across almost every market in SEE plus Central Europe. They are members of multiple exchanges, licensed in multiple jurisdictions, and simultaneously active in bilateral, day-ahead, intraday and cross-border capacity environments. This allows them to see the region as a single integrated system rather than a patchwork of isolated markets. The ability to move positions between Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Serbia, Croatia and into the smaller Balkan markets is what truly creates liquidity. Without such pan-regional trading entities, SEE would fragment into small, illiquid bowls of electricity uncertainty.
Second is capital depth and risk absorption capability. Electricity trading requires balance sheet strength, margining ability and tolerance for price shocks. This region has experienced moments of extreme price volatility, winter crises, drought-driven imbalances and politically driven procurement surges. Only the strongest players can stand in front of a large Balkan utility needing significant emergency volumes without worrying about being wiped out. That confidence gives these firms negotiating power, preferential roles in supply tenders and the ability to shape market behaviour simply by being reliable.
Third is technology and trading sophistication. Modern electricity trading is increasingly algorithmic. Intraday strategies, cross-border arbitrage, renewables balancing and price prediction are data problems. Firms like Danske Commodities, Axpo and Statkraft Trading are fundamentally tech organisations as much as energy traders. The combination of algorithmic agility with deep regional experience is decisive: it means they can capture micro-spreads no human trader could efficiently execute while also playing large-volume strategic roles. In SEE, where renewables growth and interconnection upgrades are accelerating volatility, technological superiority translates into market influence.
Fourth is physical integration. Some of these trading houses either own generation assets, manage renewable portfolios or operate long-term structured contracts with utilities and producers. That gives them not only tradeable exposure but anchored presence. It ties them into the real system, not just financial abstractions. Meanwhile, state utilities—EPS in Serbia, HEP in Croatia, ERS in Bosnia, Romanian producers, Bulgarian generation interests—retain enormous influence because they physically control when power is available or not. States therefore shape necessity, traders shape response.
Fifth is credibility and relationships. The region still values long-term stability. Many deals are still built on trust, institutional familiarity and proven reliability during crises. Players with long institutional history in SEE, such as EFT or GEN-I, command deep respect. That translates into transaction access others don’t always receive. Even as exchanges modernise markets, the Balkan reality remains partly relational, and those relationships are part of who “controls” outcomes.
From all of this emerges a more nuanced picture of control. Liquidity is shaped primarily by Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria as large, integrated, volatile and strategically connected markets. Cross-border flows are structured by Serbia’s physical centrality, Croatia’s EU bridging role and Bosnia’s export capacity. Price discovery is increasingly a regional phenomenon shaped by how Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria behave—and interpreted by elite trading houses capable of running multi-market portfolios. Meanwhile, smaller Balkan states such as Albania, North Macedonia and Montenegro do not set the rhythm; they dance to it, even as they occasionally influence specific beats through local hydrology, regulation or infrastructure events.
Institutions matter. Power exchanges like HUPX, OPCOM, IBEX, SEEPEX/ADEX and CROPEX create the stage. TSOs like MEPSO, OST, CGES, EMS, Transelectrica, ESO, HOPS and MAVIR keep the system physically possible. Regulators frame the rules. But institutions do not trade—they enable trading. Real control over liquidity, cross-border dynamics and price discovery belongs to those who can operate across countries, across platforms and across timeframes.
In the coming years, this power balance may evolve but it will not reverse. Further market coupling will deepen European integration. That strengthens the already dominant pan-European trading houses and reinforces the relevance of large liquidity hubs like Hungary and Romania. Renewables expansion in Romania, Bulgaria and the Western Balkans will increase volatility, which in turn increases the strategic importance of traders who can manage that volatility. Montenegro’s Italian link will continue to pull SEE toward Mediterranean pricing conditions. Serbia’s centrality will remain non-negotiable, Bosnia’s export role will stay critical, and Croatia’s stabilising bridge function will deepen. Smaller Balkan states will become more transparent and exchange-integrated, which will not weaken major trading firms but will further institutionalise their role as the region’s liquidity engines.
So who really shapes liquidity, cross-border flows and price discovery in South-East Europe? It is not any one country, any one government, or any one company. It is a system—structured around Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria as market anchors; Serbia, Croatia and Bosnia as strategic operational pillars; Albania, North Macedonia and Montenegro as dynamic extensions; and a concentrated group of elite traders who transform all this into a single working market. That is where power truly lies.