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The Governance of a New European Market - Have Member States lost their pivotal role in regulating the Internal Energy Market?

Vennewald, Markus (2011) The Governance of a New European Market - Have Member States lost their pivotal role in regulating the Internal Energy Market?

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Abstract:In March 2011, the Third Legislative Package on establishing a Single European Energy Market has come into effect. The new legislations aim to draw a line under the lengthy discussions on liberalizing and Europeanizing the national energy markets. A vital question in this regard is the assigned role of Member States in the new regulatory regime, in particular, if they have lost their pivotal position in the regulation of the market. The thesis seeks to investigate this question. Relying on three overall approaches to European Governance (Liberal Intergovernmentalism, Multi-level Governance, and Network Governance) as well as on Tanja A. Börzel’s analytical scheme of governance forms, the analysis seeks to characterize the policy by examining relevant section of EU primary and secondary law. Additionally, evidences are collected by consulting scientific literature. The analysis will show that competences are shared among private as well as public actors whose interactions are covered by three effective shadows of supranational hierarchy. Thus, according to the Treaty provisions, a governance form of joint decision-making can be detected which stands under a hierarchy shadow of Commission and the ECJ to apply competition law. Moreover, the examination of the Third Legislative Package, the secondary law, will reveal that albeit the day-to-day regulation is driven by Independent Regulatory Authorities, their leeway is as well constrained by a shadow of supranational hierarchy which is executed by the Commission and its facilitator, the new European agency ACER. Additionally, the competences of Member State actors are limited by the involvement of private actors. Finally, the third supranational hierarchy shadow can be detected in the informal arena of private-public negotiations which are limited by the Commission’s option to continue the regulation of the market without private involvement. Hence, according to EU primary as well as secondary law, supranational hierarchy shadows monitor the governance forms of joint decision-making, agency cooperation and private self-regulation. In such a complex system, Member States have consequently lost their pivotal in the regulation of the European Internal Energy Market.
Item Type:Essay (Bachelor)
Faculty:BMS: Behavioural, Management and Social Sciences
Subject:86 law
Programme:Public Administration BSc (56627)
Link to this item:https://purl.utwente.nl/essays/62732
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