Assessment of Electricity Market Liberalization in CEE Economies: A Multicriteria Approach

Modern societies are becoming increasingly reliant on stable and secure energy sources to enable economic development. Electricity is inherently tied to economic growth and development, as it is a key determinant of the size and progress of an economy. Electricity markets in CEE economies have been liberalized and deregulated, and these processes are still ongoing. The primary goal of this study is to examine the liberalization and deregulation of the electricity markets in eleven Central and Eastern European EU Member Countries. The PROMETHEE II and Entropy methods are used to analyze five indicators (number of producers, cumulative market share generation, cumulative market share capacity, retailers to final consumers, and cumulative market share in the eleven countries (Bulgaria, The Czech Republic, Estonia, Croatia, Latvia, Lithuania, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Slovenia, and The Slovak Republic), and the results are compared between 2007 and 2019, allowing for an assessment of overall changes in the electricity markets. The results show that Poland performed best in both analyzed years, while the Czech Republic maintained its second place. Further examination of the structure of CEE electricity markets indicated that supply and demand conditions remain notably different across the majority of the observed countries, signaling that more effort is necessary to integrate these markets into the single EU power market