EDITORIAL: GO-AHEAD FOR FULL POWER AND GAS LIBERALISATION.

Europe Energy, June, 2003

The Council of European ministers has given its blessing to full liberalisation of the electricity and gas markets. There was not much suspense after the European Parliament's vote despite a gallant last stand from Italy, whose industry woke up too late to adapt the regulation on cross border power trade to the country's reality.

The Council's go-ahead therefore paves the way for the liberalisation in July 2004 of the commercial sector - of which the definition is so far foggy and may provoke distortions in the Directive's implementation. Three years later in 2007, the market will be fully opened. It is an undeniable success for Loyola de Palacio, and closes a file opened more than a decade ago.

Let's just hope that the goals of liberalisation will be...

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