Loyola de Palacio, the European Commission vice-president for energy and transportation, says more EC proposals for electricity and gas market liberalization will be forthcoming soon.
De Palacio said EC's goal is to achieve full market decontrol by 2005. "Progressively all consumers in all member states must be free to choose their supplier," she said. "Yet, opening of the total market alone will not be sufficient to achieve a real internal market and in the next weeks the commission will thus present proposals to the European Council in Stockholm."
De Palacio made the comments at the Handesblatt Energy Conference in Berlin.
She said implementation of the EC electricity and gas directives has allowed two-thirds of electricity and three-fourths of gas consumers to choose their suppliers.
She said expectations for electricity have been surpassed. "We have witnessed a drop in electricity prices in almost all member states, for all groups of consumers," she said.
On the gas directive, which had to be implemented by August 2000, de Palacio said, "That experience so far is also generally positive. The vast majority of member states implemented the directive on time, almost all of them going further than legally required in terms of market opening."
But she said EC has had to take steps to force some nations to comply (OGJ, Jan. 1, 2001, p. 23).
De Palacio said transmission should be separated from production and sales, so the unbundling requirements of the gas and electricity directives should be strengthened.
She said third-party access to transmission should be on the basis of fixed and regulated tariffs, set or approved by an independent regulatory authority.
She said public service provisions should be reviewed and updated to protect consumers.
De Palacio said cross-border trade in electricity is only 8% of European production and the EC should develop regulatory instruments for cross-border tariffs and congestion management.
And she said the physical constraints to cross-border trade must be removed. She said the EC would propose a mechanism to promote construction of interconnection infrastructure.
