EU Internal Energy Market Reforms Cover Image

EU Internal Energy Market Reforms
EU Internal Energy Market Reforms

Author(s): Vladimír Benč
Subject(s): Politics / Political Sciences
Published by: Research Center of the Slovak Foreign Policy Association (RC SFPA)
Keywords: energy; environment; EU market; energy policy

Summary/Abstract: The main aim of this article is to point out the current problems and challenges the EU faces in formulating a common energy policy and evaluate the individual reform proposals of the European Commission. One of the cornerstones of this policy rests in the development of the EU internal energy market, where many of the EC proposals are met with numerous restrictions on the part of individual member states as well as the organizations themselves (entrepreneurs, citizens, interest groups and other entities) and where many of the current proposals threaten the energy security of the EU as well as its competitiveness. It is obvious that today the EU cannot provide individual member states with energy security as well as it is obvious that the EU internal energy market is not finalized and consolidated. Measures adopted by the EC so far have not yet produced the desired outcomes, be it in the sphere of energy prices or in the sphere of increasing competitiveness. In the first part of the text the author defines the challenges the EU faces from the point of view of energy security. In the second part of the text the author describes the most important reform proposals of the EC and analyzes their potential impact and possible threats they may pose to the competitiveness and energy security of EU member states. In the third part of the text the author analyzes the environmental aspects of the developing EU energy policy and their potential impact on individual member states and particular entities. In the conclusion the author evaluates the interests of Slovakia in his view of the common energy policy and the EU internal energy market.

  • Issue Year: XVI/2007
  • Issue No: 04
  • Page Range: 23-36
  • Page Count: 13
  • Language: English