EU to Challenge Members to Lift Energy Barriers
Günther Oettinger, Europe’s energy chief, pledged to dismantle barriers that have thwarted the goal of a common European energy market.
European policymakers have introduced legislation to allow for a more liberalised market, in hopes enhancing energy security and avoiding a 2009 scenarios when a Russian cut-off of gas left tens of thousands of citizens without power in the depths of winter.
EU has failed to realise those ambitions because of a lack of physical infrastructure to stitch together national networks as well as a reluctance by many member states to remove long-standing market barriers and embrace European laws that would expose their national energy companies to greater competition.
In introducing a plan to help connect the continent’s oil and gas pipelines and enhance its electricity grid, Oettinger complained that the EU’s pipeline networks were “still operating within the borders of the principalities of the 19th century.”
He promised to be more confrontational with European leaders, who will focus on energy policy at a special summit meeting in February.
“It’s all a matter of national political will,” the commissioner said. “We will be asking heads of state, ‘Do you really want this, or is this just something for speeches?’