EURELECTRIC recommends 10 steps to secure and increase electricity investment in the European Neighbourhood

Concerted effort is needed to attract investment in Europe’s ‘eighth energy region’, spanning EU and non-EU countries in Southeast Europe, EURELECTRIC says in a newly published paper. The paper was launched at a joint EURELECTRIC-Energy Community event today. Most countries of the region are affiliated to EURELECTRIC.

Although energy demand in the region is expected to increase, members of the Energy Community (EnC) in particular are not attracting sufficient private capital and investment in electricity generation assets and infrastructure. Most notably, several governments of the region have recently signed up to populist measures that have scared present European private investors away.

Against this background, the EURELECTRIC paper lists ten actions for change. Most notably EURELECTRIC recommends measures to:

• Safeguard existing investments;
• Strengthen the (financial) independence of national regulatory agencies;
• Increase transparency;
• Improve the regulatory environment on the one hand while hedging investment risk through innovative risk-sharing facilities and public support for priority infrastructure on the other;
• Introduce cost-reflective energy prices that promote responsible customer behaviour, while addressing energy poverty through targeted social policy;
• Create more opportunities for stakeholders in the region to exchange best practice and energy know-how with stakeholders from the EU and the private sector; strengthen the Energy Community as a crucial forum in this regard.

The full paper is available here.