This article explores the impact of an important ruling from the ECJ in Baltic Cable AB v Energimarknadsinspektionen on 11 March 2020 in which that court narrowly avoids giving the referring Swedish court a green light to interpret a key provision of the EU internal energy market legislation contra legem. Invoking instead the principle of non-discrimination, the ECJ relies on a classic remedy to recognise that a company owning and operating an electricity interconnector should be entitled to earn a reasonable profit. Although the interconnection of energy networks is an objective enshrined in Article 194(1) TFEU, the realisation of this objective has spawned a dense and highly technical web of regulation. This article explains the Court’s reasoning and its potential legal as well as economic impact in this complex and evolving regulatory space. We explain that while valuable progress has been made on technical harmonisation, classic fundamental principles of EU law, such as the non-discrimination principle, remain pivotal for resolving modern and central issues of electricity market integration.
About 1,100 TWh of natural gas can be stored in 115 storage facilities in 19 countries in the EU27 area, accounting for 25-30% of European consumption in winter periods. Securing [...]
The outbreak of the Russia-Ukraine war has revived discussions on the EU’s dependence on fossil fuel imports from Russia. To ensure gas diversification, the EU Commission has suggested over a [...]
The recent surge in energy prices has prompted many governments to introduce emergency measures to reduce the impact on consumers’ electricity and gas bills. In its REPowerEU Communication of 8 [...]
Different measures for carbon leakage prevention across Emissions Trading Systems (ETSs) may distort economic competition between firms. The same is true of competition between jurisdictions if decisions on the location [...]
The global litigation of standard essential patents (SEP) is taking a new turn with the jurisdictional battle between national courts. Some courts have started issuing anti-suit injunctions (ASI) to prohibit [...]
This paper investigates the possible dynamics that may emerge in an economy in which agents adapt to environmental degradation by increasing the produced output to repair the damages of environmental [...]
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