EU Liberalization Limps Forward
Energy market liberalization in the EU has been a difficult process and is likely to remain so. While some countries, notably the UK, have gone full steam ahead into creating fully competitive markets within their own borders, other countries, in particular France and Germany, have concentrated on developing “national champions” that will be able to compete in the expected Europe-wide energy marketplace. It is no accident that most of the UK’s energy companies are now owned by large European firms.
But before that European marketplace can properly develop, the stranglehold of the national champions on their home territories has to be broken. Naturally, those companies see no reason to give up their privileged position, and have been happily cooperating with each other to divide up Europe between them. This has led the European Commission to open anti-trust proceedings – see for example this Forbes report on investigations into the behavior of E.ON, Gaz de France (GdF) and RWE in Europe’s gas markets.
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