Brussels, 12/11/2001 (Agence Europe) - In the context of its work on the completion of the single market in the gas and electricity sectors in the run up to 2005, the European Parliament's Committee on Industry heard the opinion of several experts during a public hearing organised on 6 November.
David Hall (Public Services Privatisation Research Unit, School of Computing and Mathematical Sciences, Greenwich) noted that the liberalisation process in Europe has lead to intensive merger activity from which only a handful of production and distribution companies have emerged. He felt that the main role of Community legislation should be to preserve public service obligations. Robin Simpson (national Consumers Council, London) stressed that energy is not a product like any other, and that a cautious approach is required when it is a matter of encouraging competition in this sector. In his view, one of the main lessons to be drawn from Californian experience is the importance of long-term contracts. Professor Walter Schutz (Energiewirtschaftliches Institut, University of Cologne), noted that the debate on price developments in the energy sector demonstrated that it is important to compare developments noted by making a parallel assessment of the developments that there would have been without liberalisation. He noted that a systematic survey of this kind has not yet been carried out for the EU Member States. Felix Matthes (Ökoinstitut, Berlin) placed emphasis on the importance of transparency and the use of labels in the energy sector, and urged for equitable competition conditions. Pedro Larrera (ENDESA, Spain) raised the question of how to ensure a constant energy supply in an unceasingly fluctuating market. In his view, with regards electricity, an infrastructure could be created allowing appropriate crossborder trade, and the EU should put an end to subsidies to the energy sector. Finally, Professor Leigh Hancher (Law Faculty, University of Tilburg, Netherlands) asked: "Who, in a liberalised market, would take the risk of making significant investment in new technologies thus becoming exposed to the danger of overcapacity?".
During the debate, MEPs expressed concern about the cost of crossborder trading, the risk of seeing EU companies exert dominant pressure on the markets of candidate countries and the risk of going from a situation of public monopolies to a situation of private monopolies, reciprocity between Member States in terms of the levels of liberalisation and, finally, the use of labels in this sector. To conclude, one of the rapporteurs on this dossier, Claude Turmes (Greens/EFA, Luxembourg) declared that the Parliament must now assume its responsibilities and ensure that all these issues are fully taken into account in the legislative process for liberalisation of the gas and electricity markets.