Towards a common policy on electric energy: Internal market, security of supply, infrastructure and renewable energies

Many years have been needed to shape a Common Policy on Electric Energy and it is still not a reality. EC Treaty does not cointain any legal basis to establish this common policy, but in the Constitutional Treaty of 2004 it lays in article III-256. Anyway, it did not alter the fact that important Community legislation has been adopted mostly on the basis of art. 95 EC. Among the main legal Community acts which have the purpose of achieving an open and competitive internal market of Electric Energy and guarantee Electric Supply can be outlined Directive 2003/54/EC on common rules for internal market of Electricity, Regulation 1228/2003/EC on Electricity cross border Transport and Directive 2005/89/EC on safety Measures for Electric Supply and Infrastructure investment. Concerning Environment Protection it is also essential Directive 2001/77/EC on Promoting Renewable Energy Sources. Despite this important Community "acquis", we can doubt about the effective reach of free competition in the Electric market because it seems fairly difficult to remove traditional monopolies and oligopolistic structure of undertakings in this production area in different Member States. And Spanish market is not an exception to this structure. Renewable Energy Sources are actually a prior objective of 2007-2009 Action Plan of European Council, to be able to fulfil obligations of Kioto Protocol and slow down Climat Changes (reducing a 20% Co(2) emmissions for 2020). But these Energy sources are expensive and are not used equally in all the Member States, that is why, until now, global use of these energies in EU has not reached more than 7 % of the whole production of energy. In addition to this fact, there is another main target in order to reduce dependence of external supply, which is the saving of about 20 % of electricity waste for 2020, increasing tecnological high efficiency and promoting cientific research. Security of Energy Supply is another main target of the recent European Council which has not only the purpose of increasing Electric plants but specially achieve and increase the synchronized interconnections of the Mains of EU and extend these interconnections with third States neighbourging to EU in order to create a paneuropean market of Electricity. Thus agreements with third States about Electric Energy Supply is now a main element of external common policy of EU.