EU Energy Policy Blog

The opening of the electricity and gas sectors is the result of a determined effort of Heads of State and Government to move forward with an internal European Energy Market. A fully functioning EU internal energy market is the best guarantee for an open and competitive energy sector with a high standard of service, safety and quality. What does this mean in practice?

As of the 1st of July 2007 – the deadline for full market opening across the EU – multiple suppliers will be able to provide a wide range of services to consumers at competitive prices. However, we should not forget that Community legislation is only the framework which makes competition possible – further efforts will be needed to tackle the question of the dominant positions of traditional suppliers in various Member States. Citizens themselves will also play an important role in influencing the success of the opening of the energy markets by promoting competition between suppliers with their customer choices.

Nonetheless, some EU Member States have transitory arrangements for the opening of their markets, notably in Cyprus, Malta and Estonia for electricity and Finland, Latvia and Portugal for gas. These Member States will open up their markets later. The EU has laid down rules to ensure that customers in those countries are protected against misleading, unfair or non-transparent practices by suppliers.
On the eve of the full opening of EU energy markets, the European Commission will also present a draft Energy Consumers’ Charter, which aims to inform EU citizens about their rights relating to electricity and gas services and to encourage stakeholders to contribute to the consultation period on the final content of the Charter. On a more symbolic level, the Charter will represent the first compilation of consumers’ rights in the energy sector in a single document at EU level.

It goes without saying that open energy markets will help achieve an internal energy market that will bring competitive prices, improve security of supply, provide customers with the right to choose their supplier and the possibility to switch suppliers without any incurring costs. But they will also help protect the environment, by encouraging companies to innovate in the field of environmentally-friendly energy.

Andris Piebalgs, EU Commissioner for Energy

This entry was posted on Monday, July 2nd, 2007 at 10:46 pm and is filed under Electricity, English, Gas. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.