EU third energy package into force

Are you worried about the relentless rise of your electricity or gas bill?

This week the European Union took one step towards markets intended to improve service and value for money for industry users and consumers.

Thursday, 3 March 2011 was the deadline for the EU member states to transpose the two directives of the third legislative package for an internal gas and electricity market.

In this blog entry we try to find materials suited to the needs of the ordinary, non-expert citizen of the European Union. The economic reform agenda Europe 2020 (EU2020), the Energy 2020 strategy and progress towards internal market rules (and single market ideals) offer us a framework for thinking about energy issues.

The DG Energy of the European Commission makes judicious use of links to make the essentials of the third energy package fit one clear (but longish) web page 'Internal market – Electricity & Gas markets', including slides for a quick peek, official materials (directives and regulations), press releases and speeches. However, the page exists in English only, which is a severe limitation, when we look at all 500 million of them us.




Internal energy market

For the general reader, there is a link to an introductory web page 'Internal energy market', which offers a choice of links to about twenty different subject pages.

I want to highlight three of these updated energy introductions.

Edit 5 March 2011, about 9:40 EET:There are alternative language versions for the whole or parts of the pages with the summaries of EU legislation, among 11 "old" official languages.

The pages 'Internal market in gas (from March 2011)' and 'Internal market in electricity (from March 2011)' present the essentials of the new market rules in force in the European Union (and the rest of the European Economic Area).


ACER

The third page 'Agency for the Cooperation of Energy Regulators' offers an overview of the new agency.

For some reason I did not see the acronym in use anywhere on the page, but the EU agency will become known as ACER.


Energy market questions and answers

An alternative route to the basic information about the third energy package and ACER is offered by the clearly written Commission MEMO/11/125: Questions and Answers on the third legislative package for an internal EU gas and electricity market (published 2 March 2011, only in English). The third energy package in summary:

The package consists of two Directives, one concerning common rules for the internal market in gas (2009/73/EC), one concerning common rules for the internal market in electricity 2009/72/EC) and three Regulations, one on conditions for access to the natural gas transmission networks ((EC) No 715/2009), one on conditions for access to the network for cross-border exchange of electricity ((EC) No 714/2009) and one on the establishment of the Agency for the Cooperation of Energy Regulators ACER ((EC) No 713/2009). They were adopted in July 2009.

Ralf Grahn


P.S. The Euroblog world keeps expanding. Multilingual Bloggingportal.eu now aggregates the posts of 772 blogs related to European affairs (European Union, Council of Europe). Keep up to date on Europe while improving your language skills for free.


P.S. 2: It is difficult to get an overview of three unilingual blogs (EN, FI, SV) and one trilingual one in constant movement, so here you have links to my ten latest entries:

Grahnlaw: From Libya to Brazil, interior goes international (EU Justice and Home Affairs Council)

Grahnlaw Suomi Finland: EU: Jurisdiction in civil and commercial matters (Brussels I revision)

Grahnblawg: EU: Information och energi inför TTE-rådet

Grahnlaw Suomi Finland: Energin inför EU:s vårtoppmöte om ekonomi och näringsliv

Eurooppaoikeus: EU:n energian tukkumarkkinoiden säätely: Paremmin ja avoimemmin

Grahnlaw Suomi Finland: EU2020-strategia: Energia 2020

Grahnlaw: EU Council (TTE) more open and transparent (Will it last?)

Grahnlaw Suomi Finland: Energy for Europe

Grahnblawg: Energi i EU: Sverige informerar

Grahnlaw Suomi Finland: Förny(else)bar energi i Europeiska unionen


Are you interested in European values? How about the EU and the economy, business, politics, policies or law? Blog comments are welcome in the main Western European languages, but find me on Twitter @RalfGrahn and Facebook as well.