Brussels, 25/02/2016 (Agence Europe) - The European Commission sent reasoned opinions to Austria, Belgium and Croatia on Thursday 25 February, calling on them to fully incorporate the texts of the 3rd legislative package on liberalising the energy internal market into their respective national laws.
Austria and Belgium have been urged to ensure that the electricity directive (2009/72/EC) and gas directive (2009/73/EC) are correctly implemented and applied. These two texts contain key provisions for a proper functioning of energy markets, including rules on unbundling of transmission system operators from energy suppliers and producers, on strengthening national regulators and on improved functioning of retail markets to the benefit of consumers.
The Commission says that Austria has incorrectly transposed several unbundling requirements concerning the independent transmission operator unbundling model and has not fully respected rules concerning the powers of the national regulatory authority.
Belgium did not correctly transpose some of the rules on ownership unbundling, making it nearly impossible for other undertakings than the national gas and electricity incumbent system operators to develop and manage interconnectors to other EU member states. Neither did it correctly transpose certain rules on the powers of the national regulator and consumer provisions.
Croatia's gas market rules have fallen foul of the Commission which says that the current national framework creates unjustified barriers to the export of domestic gas production, restricts gas imports from other member states and leads to delayed gas market opening, contrary to the rules on free movement of goods in the TFEU and the gas directive and the gas regulation 715/2009/EC. Additionally, the existing price regulation for non-household customers and the regime on access to and capacity allocation of storage do not fully comply with EU internal energy market rules.
The three member states have two months to inform the European Commission of the measures taken to remedy the situation, or risk referral to the Court of Justice of the EU. (Original version in French by Emmanuel Hagry)