HEADING TOWARDS O N E INTEGRATED EUROPEAN ELECTRICITY MARKET: FINALLY SIGNS OF CONVERGENCE?

摘要

The restructuring of electricity markets in EU countries was triggered by the European Commissions’ directive, 1996(EC), “Directive for a common electricity market”. The core intention of the EC was and still is to create one joint common European electricity market. In 2008, however, this area still consists of at least seven different sub-markets, separated by insufficient transmission capacities, and differences in conditions for access to the grid. rnThe core objective of this paper is to analyse whether the steps with respect to liberalisation, deregulation, and privatisation undertaken so far are sufficient to bring about one common European electricity market. Specific attention will be put on recent efforts and developments to integrate Central and Eastern European countries like Czech Republic, Poland and Hungary into the core French-German-Austrian-Swiss market