EU Internal Energy Market Policy: Achievements and Hurdles

Abstract

It is now more than 20 years since the European Commission (here-after: the Commission) issued its first Green Paper on the internal energy market in Europe in 1988 (CEC 1988). The major idea was that free and fair competition between energy companies across the European Community would lead to large efficiency gains, lower and more similar prices for consumers across the community, increased competitiveness for energy-using industries, economic growth, and increased welfare. An important part of the proposal was a “common carrier” system for gas and electricity, which meant that European electricity and gas infrastructure should be operated and further developed by agents that were independent from the production- and supply-interests (Eikeland 2004; Lyons 1992). Such independence would allow consumers to purchase energy from any supplier in the internal energy market, regardless of who owned the grid. The vision-ary concept emerging was nondiscriminatory third-party access to the grid.