Germany, Hungary 'Breach of EU Energy Rules'
The European Commission (EC) has referred Germany and Hungary to the Court of Justice of the European Union for failure to fully comply with the Third Energy Package (TEP) despite two previous warnings, it said July 19.
In the case of Germany, it found that the "national regulatory authority" - meaning its networks regulator the Bundesnetzagentur - was not as independent as it should be, the tariffs and conditions for accessing the power and gas grids being to a large extent laid down in detailed regulations adopted by the federal government. Germany has also incorrectly transposed into national law several requirements concerning the independent transmission operator (ITO) unbundling model, the EC said. For example, the rules on the independence of the staff and the management of the ITO do not fully respect the directives and the definition of vertically integrated undertaking incorrectly excludes activities outside the EU. The Bundesnetzagentur has not publicly commented about the EC referral.
Germany was warned first in February 2015 and again in April 2016. Since compliance with EU law is not yet in place, the EC said it had to refer these matters to the European Court of Justice (ECJ).
In the case of Hungary, the referral to the ECJ concerns the setting of gas and power network tariffs. The TEP requires that tariffs applied by network operators for the use of electricity and gas networks are regulated in order to prevent anti-competitive behaviour but the legislative measures adopted by Hungary exclude certain types of costs from the calculation of network electricity and gas tariffs, in violation of the principle of cost-recovery of tariffs. In addition, the EC found that Hungary adopted amendments to its energy legislation that jeopardise the right of market operators to a full judicial review of the national regulator's decisions on network tariffs.