Publications Archive

The EU Commission wants energy consumers to have a stronger position on the retail market. Thus, in future, consumers will be better able to compare energy supply contracts using independent sources of information – such as internet portals. In addition, private households will be more able to adjust their electricity consumption to take account of changes in price at different times of day. cep has assessed the individual measures.

EU Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker has declared that the completion of a Digital Single Market is one of the priorities of his period of office. With the Digital Single Market Strategy, the Commission wants to make the EU the leader of the digital economy. A central pillar of this strategy is the building of a "data economy" (Big Data, cloud services, Internet of Things).

In order to shorten the legislative process in the EU, the European Parliament, Council and EU Commission have agreed to reach agreements in negotiations behind closed doors - the informal trialogues - prior to the respective first reading of the legislative proposal. In cep's view, this procedure is in urgent need of an overhaul.

The European Parliament has urged the EU Commission to “immediately” develop a new strategy to combat harmful alcohol consumption in the EU. In its resolution it already defines an array of concrete measures. The cep is assessing these measures in detail.

With the European Commission having recently set out its vision for the entire EU transport sector up to 2050, the European Parliament now proposes additional measures aimed at helping to achieve a competition-oriented and sustainable transport sector. cep assesses the Parliament's main proposals from an economic and legal perspective.

The European Commission will harmonise the contractual rights of both parties in online purchasing EU wide. In addition, it will submit legislative proposals to prevent "unjustified geo-blocking". Geo-blocking is a technical measure used by online traders to restrict access to cross-border online purchasing by users in a specific geographical location.

EU Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker has given a widely watched speech on the State of the Union. The refugee crisis was at the centre of the speech. Given the predominance of this burning issue it was somewhat overlooked by many observers that Juncker at the same time also presented the Commission Working Programme for 2016.

In 2014, the European Council laid down stricter targets for reducing carbon emissions for the period 2021-2030. The 2030 reduction target in the sectors covered by the EU Emissions Trading System (ETS) amounts to at least 43% as compared with 2005 levels. In order to achieve this, the EU-wide permitted volume of emissions ("Cap") will be reduced annually from 2021 by 2.2% instead of the current 1.74%. In addition, the "benchmarks", which aim to create incentives for reducing carbon emissions and are based on the average emission volume of the 10% most efficient installations in a sector in 2007 and 2008, will be subject to a blanket reduction.

The EU Commission is convinced that EU legislation can be improved. With the "Better Regulation Package" it has therefore taken measures to increase the quality of legislation. cep considers whether it has been successful in this regard.

In the context of increasing electricity generation based on renewable energy, the Commission puts forward its ideas for redesigning the European electricity markets. Thus support for renewable energy should follow a more market-based concept. The simple provision of reserve capacity will only be remunerated by way of capacity mechanisms in the exceptional case that electricity supply cannot be secured by the electricity market itself.