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Legal Trends in the EU Gas Sector

Publication at Faculty of Law |
2016

Abstract

Even though the current situation in the EU gas market is auspicious in the competitive level, due the improving of suppliers' diversification: the time, when the Russia was the only supplier to some EU member states is in the past, and now the EU gas market is over-supplied, from several partners outside the EU by spot-transactions, however, there are still some significant differences on the gas prices among the EU Member States. The regulation of the gas market liberalization in the EU is realized by the norms of the different aspects of the EU Law of the internal market.

The Third Energy Package provisions, and the European Court of Justice' jurisprudence, through which are interpreted the relevant rules of the EU legislation and eliminated the existing gaps in the legislation - are not sufficient. In order to have a leading role in the global market, especially in the energy field, the EU meets the necessity of building and enhancing of the internal single gas market.

The main challenges in creating a single gas market are due the following: lack of predictability, the lack of effectiveness of the integration measures, the problems related to ensuring security of supply, and to conclude that, for the purposes of achieving a harmonious integration and security of supply are required legal guarantees return on investment in all parts of production - sales cycle. The importance of this issue is stressed by the EU's dependence on foreign gas producers, for whom the terms of making investments in facility is the "security of demand"