Paper Titles & Abstracts

The present paper addresses challenges to the European Union's internal gas market in terms of policy implementation. On 15th November 2012, the European Commission presented a Communication assessing the state of the Internal Energy Market, to be completed by 2014. Despite some considerable achievements, a number of issues still need to be tackled in the EU energy market before policy objectives set in the Europe 2020 Agenda and the Energy Roadmap 2050 can be attained. Part of these issues relate to an institutional inability of States to influence the undertakings. The European Commission attempts to play a role of a supra-national regulator and to influence the implementation of the key provisions for a proper functioning of the energy markets, including new rules on unbundling of networks, rules strengthening the independence and the powers of national regulators, and rules on the improvement of the functioning of retail markets to the benefit of consumers. Hence, the EU's regulatory framework in the gas sector is living important transformations. The design and implementation of the EU energy regulatory system will be therefore discussed. Moreover,an analysis of price dynamics and of new emerging market related risks will be assessed.