29 April 2024
Energy Union – Help or hindrance?
Publication date: 29 May 2017
Gas Strategies Group
10 Saint Bride Street
London UK
EC4A 4AD
ISSN: 0964-8496
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The EU’s ‘Energy Union’ has politicised the road to achieving security of supply and marked a shift away from market-based solutions – the foundation for developing the internal energy market. Yet the single gas market – shaped by the Third Energy Package – has already increased competition and provided European citizens with a vast choice of affordable energy. New interconnectors, financed by Brussels within the Connecting Europe Facility, will lead to completion of the internal market as early as 2020. Markets are already able to deliver reliably and competitively to consumers in the majority of EU member states due to gas interconnectors and rising LNG and pipeline volumes. Excessive subsidies for renewables, overregulation and over-politicisation of the EU’s energy sector risk undermining visible progress achieved in creating a competitive gas market – an important milestone towards a low-carbon future. Gas Matters questions whether the Energy Union is really necessary for the completion of the EU single gas market.