Shortcomings of the Energy Market Liberalization in the European Union

The nature and number of infringement procedures started by the European Commission across the European Union clearly reveals the insufficiencies of the EU energy legal framework laid down so far by the EU secondary law. So, too, does the disappointing pace at which the European electricity and gas markets have been opened to competition and harmonized across national borders. What are the main obstacles to healthy competition in both gas and electricity markets? They include highly concentrated markets, the protectionist policies of domestic government's, different import dependences, the vertical integration of supply, generation, transmission and distribution, infrastructural obstacles to equal third party access, insufficient investment in domestic infrastructure and cross border interconnections and lack of independent energy regulators.