Baku State University

The liberalization of European energy markets is an ongoing process which started around 20 years ago. The aim of the liberalization process was to remove national monopolies and stimulate cross-border trade to attain a single European energy market, supposedly leading to lower prices and better services for consumers. A third-party access regime and protection mechanisms against discrimination by vertically integrated energy utilities were introduced by European directives in the mid to late 1990s. The liberalization process was then re-enforced by the launch of the so-called second energy package in 2003 including an obligation on Member States to fully open their electricity and gas markets by way of a regulated third-party access regime and far reaching rules on legal, operational and informational unbundling.

Consumer protection lies at the heart of the European Union competition law system. EU energy policy is de facto an extension of competition law to the EU energy sector. For business and consumers, this means that guaranteeing a reliable energy supply at reasonable prices is paramount. In this spirit, the EU has been progressively working towards the completion of the Internal Energy Market and a coherent EU energy policy since the 1980 s, increasingly liberalizing European electricity and gas markets. Ownership Unbundling and Third-Party Access, set out in 2009 in the Third Energy Package legislation, are key elements with a dual goal in this respect: they facilitate liberalization, as well as a Europe-wide integration of energy markets [4, 59-60].