The investment process in gas infrastructure is often burdened with high investment costs and the risks associated with ensuring its viability. In order to achieve the public objective of security and stability of supply and competition in the natural gas market, while limiting the investment risk on the investor side of the new gas infrastructure, regulations have been introduced to allow the investor not to apply the legal requirements set out in Article 22 of Directive 2003/55/EC (amended by Article 36 of Directive 2009/73/EC) for a specified period of time and after fulfilment of the indicated requirements. The exemption granted by the European Commission to the OPAL gas pipeline by the decision of 28 October 2016 raises doubts as to the legal basis of such exemption and the fulfilment of the substantive conditions governing its granting. The article analyses the decision by criticizing the grounds and merits of its adoption.
The issue of energy prices presents an extremely topical subject with a major impact on human society. Energy demand is constantly increasing and most regions of the world are facing serious difficulties in ensuring sufficient energy supplies. However, not only global events affect energy prices in the particular country. National energy markets are highly specific and some local factors may also prove significant. In our contribution we focus on the Slovak Republic and try to analyze the major political and economic factors affecting the final price of energy, particularly of gas and electricity. We pay attention to the period from the accession of the country to the European Union in 2004 until 2011 characterised by ‘third liberalisation package’ that is associated with a wide range of major changes. Largely monopolized energy market has been gradually opening up to competition and the countries with regulated prices have been facing the increasing pressure to let the free market decide. Progressive liberalisation of energy markets enables consumers to use the energy services offered by various private companies. This new element operating in the energy sector is largely reflected in final energy prices. Thus, the main goal of this study is to highlight the price disparities between different energy commodities in European Union member states since we are at present witnesses to of significant regional disparities in energy prices. We try to analyze current energy prices with respect to GDP (regarding purchasing power parity as well) to ensure that resulting comparison would reflect the financial potential of the population. Demonstrating the effects of the economic crisis on energy prices in different countries will be another important aspect of this contribution.
JavaScript is turned off in your web browser. Turn it on to take full advantage of this site, then refresh the page.