Electricity liberalization.

Electricity was an obvious candidate in the renewed drive to complete a European Single Market in the Delors years. Despite the energy sector being the first candidate for European integration in 1951, electricity consumption remained, in the mid-1980s, tied to a regional monopoly supplier, resulting in the opinion of the Commission in inflated prices and a lack of innovation. As a key factor in production costs in manufacturing industry, and a contributory factor to every household bill, the electricity supply industry, wholly untouched by market logic, presented a ripe apple for a (then) confident European Commission keen to progress the frontiers of project Europe, and to demonstrate tangible results in European integration by the promise of lower prices arising from the introduction of competition