The European Public Services Union (EPSU) and the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) strongly criticized the measures contained in the "third energy package" presented by the European Commission on September 19 which aims at completing the liberalization of the gas and electricity markets. They notably blame the package for not taking into account in its propositions the social consequences. (Ref. 070772)
The “energy package’s” content. The “third energy package” (*) proposed by the Commission and aimed at amending the existing legislation in terms of liberalization of the gas and electricity markets, contains the following measures:
- separation of production and supply from transmission networks. A company will no longer be allowed to own both the electricity or gas network and the supply and production activities. As a consequence, it will either have to sell its network ownership or, if it keeps it, transfer to the management to another company or an entirely independent body;
- companies from countries outside the EU which want to acquire participation or control a network will have to follow the same dissociation rules;
- the Agency for the Cooperation of Energy Regulators with binding decision powers will be created;
- national regulators’ independence will be guaranteed and strengthened;
- a new network for energy transmission operators in charge of cooperating and developing security standards and joint technical and commercial codes, will be created;
- the market’s transparency will be increased, by guaranteeing access to information and prices’ transparency;
- solidarity between national operators will be strengthened, to make sure that they help each other better in the event of a threat to supplying security.
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