The Treaty of Lisbon paved the way for legal formalization of new European
Union policies and significantly enhanced the external dimension of the European
Union Internal Market. The newly emerged European Union energy policy is a
good example of this. External objectives of the European Union energy policy are
being fulfilled through the Energy Community which embraces not only European
Union Member States and candidate countries but also third countries without any
perspective of membership in the EU. The Energy Community is designed as a
perfect example of the ‘integration without membership’ model which gives a stake
for third countries in the European Union Internal Market and promotes European
Union’s sectoral acquis beyond the EU borders and plays a role of a laboratory
working on better and deeper engagement of third countries into expanding the
European Legal Space. This article focuses on challenges of the process of the
application of the EU ‘energy acquis’ in Ukraine and Moldova.