Brussels, 09/07/2001 (Agence Europe) - The fourth European forum on the regulation of the gas market (Madrid Forum) gathered on 2 and 3 July representatives from the national "regulation" authorities, the European Commission, the Belgian EU Presidency, the European Economic Area countries (EEA), industry and consumers, which stated their determination to accomplish rapid progress towards the creation of a fully operational integrated gas market and to provide a competitive supply, transparent and non-discriminatory access, while reflecting true costs.
The Commission, supported by the "regulators", underlined the importance of rapid progress over the proposals for liberalisation of the gas and electricity markets around 2005. Noticeably, the Madrid Forum expressed its concerns against the capacity constraints that risk becoming major problems for the European gas market. In this matter, the Commission announced its intention to develop a plan on European infrastructure providing an analysis of the situation in terms of capacity, and invited all the parties to collaborate. The recent decision by the Norwegian government to abandon the sale of gas through the GFU system was welcomed by consumers and producers, as well as Oslo's intention to apply provision from the "gas" Directive. Finally, the Commission reaffirmed the importance of a good balance between the role of the market and regulation in terms of the opening of the gas market to competition and called upon all the parties concerned to make the efforts required to take on the challenge. In this context, the Forum invites them to work in favour of pragmatic solutions and to avoid as much as possible the adoption of additional regulations. The conclusions of the Madrid Forum may be found on the Internet at the following address: http: //europa.eu.int/comm/energy/en/gas_single_market/madrid3/madrid4.html.