EUROPEAN ENERGY LAW

“Is European Energy Law compatible with the basic tenets of the European Economic Constitution?”

“Is European Energy Law compatible with the basic tenets of the European Economic Constitution?”

Introduction: the reasons I am pursuing this area of law

“However, the economic order of the Community is that of a market system, essentially based upon the concept, and process, of competition. Individual rights are guaranteed, but certain limits can be set on the exercise of these rights in the light of the public interest. The EC Treaty allocates competition as a principle goal of the Internal Market, with Article 3 EC creating a picture of “an internal market characterised, as between MS, of obstacles to the free movement of goods, persons, services and capital” and “a system ensuring that competition in the Internal Market is not distorted”. This is to take place within the context provided by Article 4 EC of “an open market economy with free competition”. The Court has subsequently elevated competition into one of the fundamental principles of the Economic Constitution”.

The EU is a political animal - an “unruly horse”- whose economic harnesses have prevented it from losing control; it ultimately seeks to make money, and therefore caters, first and foremost, for the political interests of the Member States. I do not think the EU is truly “economic” in nature; it seeks to emanate the centralisation of power. We see this happening because the Lisbon Treaty talks in economic terms but the EU acts politically. These are the underlying assumptions of the Lisbon Treaty. We see this in the competition provisions of the Treaty which favours economic liberalisation over capitalism and Governmental intervention in the market.

“The Community has the most strongly free-market orientated constitution in the world” . I will be jettisoning whether the free market actually exists and the extent to which the energy market is a free market. European energy law is not compatible with the basic tenets of the European Economic Constitution because there is no balance, in other words there is no market equilibrium of energy. My argument centres on capitalism; I believe that the EU seeks to maximise profits to ensure that it retains control in the market because energy is in demand. It does this in a subtle way by ensuring that consumers' interests are catered for in the Treaty. The Treaty provisions are too wide thus the oil and gas companies are exploiting this to their own advantage. As we shall see, they want maximum profit on their capital. Capitalism has been defined as, “An economic system in which the means of production and distribution are privately owned and development is proportionate to the accumulation and re-investment of profits gained in a free market” (cite this source!). The EU is trying to prevent distortion of competition but they are allowing Member States to pursue their own interests in various ways - as I shall be exploring later in this thesis - as well as having regulations to prevent abuse of a ...