ARTICLES
Towards A Truly Open European Energy Market. The Benefits For Serbia.
A.1. Introductory remarks. In the mid ‘90ies it was apparent that as in other network sectors, in the electricity and natural gas sectors also, the existence of monopolies and oligopolies had various disadvantages for the economy and the consumers, such as high prices and lack of investments at a great risk to the security of supply. The European Commission came to the conclusion that there is room for changes and more competition in this sector and issued a number of rules to help the Member States and the market in this direction.
A.2. The first energy package. The EU project “Liberalisation of the Energy Market” started with the first EU Directives of 1996 & 1998 concerning common rules for the internal market in electricity and natural gas respectively, which gave rise to a long and controversial discussion on the theory of monopolies and signalised the start of a larger plan towards more integration and competition in the European Union. Core principles of this process were free competition, transparency, free access to the energy networks and security of supply.
At this point it was clear that through “liberalisation” the aim was to abolish all rules and measures adopted by the Member States, used to excuse and retain competition barriers. The idea was not to prevent competition and discourage initiatives, but to create and protect efficient competition in the energy market.
A.3. The second energy package. From the beginning of 2001 and as the results of the first step of the liberalisation process were not the ones desired the debate on a second energy package started. The new rules for the internal market in electricity and natural gas, repealing the old ones, were adopted in 2004. Main development was the introduction of strengthened provisions on the separation of the transmission and distribution and the mandatory establishment of national energy Regulators. The new provisions aimed at increasing competitiveness and improving service quality, at guaranteeing fair prices for consumers, establishing rules on public service obligations, improving interconnection and bolstering security of supply. Measures were to be put in place to protect consumer interests and allow them to actually exercise the right to choose their supplier. In practice, first of all, from 1 July 2004, industrial consumers and, then, from 1 July 2007, domestic consumers had the freedom to choose their energy supplier.