Guest Comment

摘要

On 10 January this year the European Commission (EC) released its Strategic Energy Review and reported its final findings on an enquiry into competition in the energy sector, launched in June 2005. Both reports set out the EC's position on a range of perceived shortcomings in the European energy sector related to market concentration, vertical integration and pricing. They also recommend a number of key measures related to future policy direction, some of which could have significant long-term credit-quality implications for European utilities. Certainly, energy issues are highly sensitive and politicised in the EU. Therefore, a perceived lack of political will from member states to decentralise energy policy has led the EC to use competition law to liberalise the markets. Importantly, the EC believes that more stringent competitive ground rules and market structures should lead to the lowest possible energy prices, and that these measures should remain compatible with supply security and environmental goals.