1 EU Energy Infrastructure Policy – Unintended Redistribution of Economic Opportunities?

In 1987, the European Union adopted the Single European Act extending the scope of the internal market. A 1988 green paper proposed to include also the energy sector in this work (Commission of the European Communities, 1988). In order to realise such free trade in energy within and across the member states, free access to infrastructure services and further investments in infrastructure were seen as pivotal measures. Control over infrastructure by a single supplier would not be compatible with the right of energy consumers to exercise free choice of whom to supply their energy. To ensure an independent energy infrastructure thus became the most important policy issue in the internal market project of Europe, challenging the hitherto dominant vertical integration mode of organising electricity supply. At the core of the many political aims formulated for the internal energy market project were lower energy costs for consumers, thought to arise from price competition between suppliers, and hence, an increase in welfare at the European level. Lower costs for the European energy-intensive industry was singled out as particularly important to increase its global competitive power. The internal energy market project as such reflected the general free market credo that consumers would be the true beneficiaries. Lower prices and the zero