PURPOSE: to establish a common framework for the
development, production and dissemination of comparable European
statistics on natural gas and electricity prices for household and
final non-household customers in the EU.
PROPOSED ACT: Regulation of the European Parliament
and of the Council.
ROLE OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT: the European
Parliament decides in accordance with the ordinary legislative
procedure and on an equal footing with the Council.
BACKGROUND: high quality, comparable, up-to-date,
reliable and harmonised information on natural gas and electricity
prices charged to final customers are needed in order to draft
Energy Union policy and monitor the Member States energy
markets.
Up to the present date, Directive 2008/92/EC of
the European Parliament and of the Council has provided a
common framework for producing, transmitting and disseminating
comparable statistics on the natural gas and electricity retail
prices charged to industrial customers in the Union. National
authorities collect price data for household customers on the basis
of a voluntary agreement.
The growing complexity of the internal energy market
make it increasingly difficult to obtain reliable and up-to-date
price data for natural gas and electricity in the absence of
legally binding obligations to provide such data, in particular for
the household sector.
In order to guarantee the reporting of high quality
price data for the household sector and for the non-household
sector, the Commission considered that the collection of both
types of data should be covered by a legal act.
The European Commission adopted on 25 February 2015
the Energy
Union Package. One of the actions of the Energy Union Package
under the chapter of the internal energy market defines an analysis
of energy prices and costs to be carried out in 2016 and every 2
years thereafter.
CONTENT: the proposed Regulation seeks to establish a
common framework for the development, production and dissemination
of comparable European statistics on natural gas and electricity
prices for household and final non-household customers in the EU.
It repeals Directive 2008/92/EC.
While applying the principle of maintaining a reduced
burden on respondents and of administrative simplification, Member
States shall compile data on natural gas and electricity prices
and their sub-components on network costs and taxes, levies,
fees and charges as referred to in Annexes I and II and on
consumption volumes.
The system of consumption bands used by the
Commission (Eurostat) in its price publications should ensure the
transparency of the market and the broad dissemination of
non-confidential price data and should enable the calculation of
European aggregates.
Detailed data on the breakdown of consumption bands
and their respective market shares are an essential part of natural
gas and electricity price statistics.
Members States should regularly prepare quality
reports and assessments of the quality of the price
data.
Member States shall not be obliged to transmit data on
natural gas prices for household customers to the Commission
(Eurostat) if the consumption of natural gas in the household
sector is below a threshold of 1 % of national total energy
consumption in the household sector.
Based on a justified request from a Member State, the
Commission may grant derogations to Member States in
relation to those specific obligations for which the application of
this Regulation to the national statistical system of a Member
State requires major adaptations and is likely to lead to a
significant additional burden on respondents.
DELEGATED ACTS: the proposal contains provisions
empowering the Commission to adopt delegated acts in accordance
with Article 290 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European
Union.