Brussels, 18/04/2001 (Agence Europe) - The European Commission "regrets" the decision by France to withdraw from the agenda of the French Parliament the transposition of the European Directive on the opening of the gas market, states Gilles Gantelet, spokesperson for the European Commissioner for Energy, Loyola de Palacio. The European executive was informed by the press that the French government did not intend to include the Directive in the parliamentary agenda before 2002. Last December, the European Commission had sent a motivated opinion to France for failure to transpose the Gas Directive, enforced since last August. In its letter of reply, dated 5 April, France did not signal its intention to postpone the transposition of the Directive, indicates Gilles Gantelet. "The procedure should follow its course", he added. The Gas Directive "does not require the opening of the capital of Gaz de France, but the opening of the market". In principal, the actors may be public or private, recalls the spokesperson.
The Directive foresees the opening of 20% of the gas market as of August 2001 for the large "eligible" companies, 28% in 2006 and 33% in 2010. In practice 78% of consumption is already liberalisation in the Member States that have transposed the Directive. The Gaz de France company has itself adopted a transition regime for the companies eligible. Nevertheless, this is not a formal transposition, added the Commission when opening a procedure against France.
Moreover, the Commission presented, last March, a new proposal aiming to accelerate the liberalisation of the gas market and achieve an opening of the market for all consumers by 2005. Let us recall that France opposed (successfully) the inclusion of this deadline in the conclusions of the Stockholm Summit.