EU Energy Law, Volume 8: The Energy Infrastructure Policy of the European Union

Infrastructures are the backbone of any economy, and energy is vital to our way of life. Electricity transmission, gas, and oil pipelines, smart grids, storage of energy, and CO2 transport are essential elements of our present and future energy systems. The energy and climate policies conducted by the European Union since 2007 have led to the third energy package governing the internal electricity and gas markets, to the directive setting the target of 20% of renewable sources of energy by 2020, to the energy effeciency directive and most recently to the regulation establishing the guidelines on trans-European energy infrastructures and to the new financing programme called 'Connecting Europe Facility'. In five years' time, national energy policies have been drastically reshaped by the EU directives and regulations, now based on Article 194 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union. It is now time to understand the importance of these regulatory changes and the resulting 'europeanisation' of the energy policy.