The purpose of this contribution is to analyse the role granted to – or assumed by – the Agency for the Cooperation of Energy Regulators (“ACER”) in relation to the implementation of Regulation 1227/20111 (“REMIT”), with a specific focus on the electricity market. It ultimately calls for a clarification of the status of ACER in the European energy regulatory framework.

This article assesses the manner in which Commission Regulation (EU) 2015/1222 of 24 July 2015 establishing a guideline on capacity allocation and congestion management (“CACM”) alters the legal context within which power exchanges (“PXs”) perform their activities related to market coupling. By submitting the cooperation among the newly-introduced NEMO-entities, and between these NEMOs and TSOs, regarding market coupling to a new set of rules, CACM affects the market coupling activities of PXs in different ways. This article in particular examines from the power exchanges’ perspective (1) the need for the increased regulation introduced by CACM, (2) how CACM affects their activities in the context of market coupling and (3) whether CACM contributes to a better governance of market coupling.

With the availability of cheaper technology and the rise of digitalisation, consumers can actively participate in markets and also offer their own services or self-/co-produce products and services. Active consumers are fundamental building-blocks of the European Union’s goal to achieve smart, sustainable and inclusive growth in Europe. In the energy sector active consumers play a key role in promoting competition, ensuring affordable energy prices and security of supply, as well as contributing to the EU’s environmental and climate goals. By engaging in more efficient energy use, consumers are crucial actors to manage the energy transition. However, the present legal framework does not fully facilitate this active role. The aim of this article is to answer the question how EU law conceptualises and supports the active role of consumers in the regulation of energy markets.

This article, initially discussed at a conference organised in March 2017 by the Belgian Commission for Electricity and Gas Regulation (CREG) on the new governance structures in the EU energy sector, deals with energy governance structures in the EU energy and climate diplomacy and in development cooperation between the EU, its member states and third countries.

It is understood that, at large, the existing tools of EU energy and climate diplomacy create governance structures: bilateral partnerships, trade agreements, regional and multilateral orders are per se instruments to govern the underlying relationship between the EU, its member states and third countries. The focus in this paper revolves around those instruments of EU energy and climate diplomacy which aim at reinforcing energy governance structures (referred to also as institutional and normative energy frameworks) and promoting solid transparent frameworks in the field of energy in partner countries.

In particular, the paper aims at identifying – among the existing tools of the energy and climate diplomacy –instruments and opportunities in favour of African countries which contribute to strengthening those institutional and normative energy frameworks and facilitate investment towards universal energy access and energy transition. To do so, the paper reviews the existing policy and legal instruments of EU external energy action in general and in Africa and concludes proposing policy recommendations on further development cooperation and energy diplomacy initiatives in favour of African countries.

The first section reviews the principles of EU energy and climate diplomacy and their alignment with development objectives, including the emphasis on strengthening institutional and normative frameworks in the energy sector. The second section considers the internal coordination between the EU and its member states which is necessary to carry out the external energy and climate diplomacy as well as development cooperation. The third section describes the existing tools of the EU energy diplomacy that aim to strengthen energy institutions and frameworks in partner countries. The fourth section reviews a selection of existing EU initiatives in favour of African countries and brings forward a proposal for EU action to reinforce energy governance structures of partner countries in Africa.

EU network codes are legally binding rules related to cross-border and market integration issues and elaborated through a complex procedure set by the third energy package. This article comments on the experience accumulated so far and identifies future challenges by following the “life cycle” of EU network codes from their elaboration phase to the current stage of their implementation.

Over the last decade complexity has impaired financial regulators’ and supervisors’ ability to cope with informational asymmetries, moral hazards and other market failures. Recent regulatory responses have been to include external auditors in the range of “gatekeepers” and “watchdogs” that serve regulatory objectives. On the other hand, the compliance function gained greater prominence as a form of internalised law enforcement, being increasingly seen as facilitating the achievement of public regulatory needs in maintaining the safety and soundness of financial institutions. Yet, uncertainty has pervaded the issue of what modes of interaction supervisors, compliance and external auditors should be subject to. International experience and anecdotal evidence show, in fact, that the current informal, discretion-based, relationship between such gatekeepers brings about risks of knowledge fragmentation and ambiguity, calling for better gathering and use of “gatekeepers’ knowledge”. The objective of this article is to address and rectify problems of multiple centres of knowledge construction, by approaching questions pertaining to the interaction between the “internal” and “external” gatekeepers. A primary contribution of this article is to examine this problem by reconciling the strand of research concerning multiple gatekeepers´ liability and the developing legal scholarship on compliance as a delegated form of external enforcement. The explanatory nature of multiple gatekeepers’ liability is twofold: first, it contributes in emphasising the complexity stemming from the interactions between multiple gatekeepers; second, it offers a solid working hypothesis to detect the market failures that can arise from such complexity, namely relating to fragmentation – and construction – of knowledge.