"EU Competition Law and the European Gas Supply Agreements," How the main infringements have been addressed?

Abstract

Natural gas is one of the most frequent fuels in the European Union. Based on the specific features of the natural gas transportation (i.e. the need for pipelines), the market liberalization and subsequently the application of EU competition law in this sector have always been challenging. The purpose of this thesis is to consider the European gas supply contracts from the competition law aspects in order to find how the main anti-competitive arrangements in this sector could be addressed. In this way, the structure of the sales market is considered by the critical view to the European gas policies. The aim is to find the tools that EU policies could provide to deal with the anti-competitive concerns of the infringements and to what extent these preventive or punitive measures have been successful. Moreover, the outcomes of the research on the future gas sales agreements and the development of the European gas supply market is studied as well.