Energy Commissioner Andris Piebalgs welcomed, on the 30th May 2008, the EEX and Powernext joint venture as a step forward in creating a well-functioning market. In a press conference organised on the 30th May in Brussels to present the new cooperation between German and French spot markets for electricity.

Commissioner Piebalgs said "I am pleased to stand here and bear witness to an important agreement, which, I hope, also means great progress for the European electricity market. Efficient power exchanges are indeed an issue that the European Commission's Energy Policy for Europe recognised as a key requirement for a well functioning electricity market".

Currently French and German spot markets represent almost a third of European electricity production and their location in Europe's electrical centre of gravity links to all other parts of Europe. After the new cooperation agreement, spot markets of Austria, France, Germany and Switzerland will be merged into a new entity based in Paris, while derivative markets of the corresponding region will be set up in a separate infrastructure based in Leipzig, the current headquarters of EEX.

Commissioner Piebalgs framed the new cooperation between both spot markets in the context of the Pentalateral forum, an initiative between Germany, France, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg for closer integration of their electricity markets. The Pentalateral forum countries have decided to move towards coupling their markets through implicit auctions starting from the beginning of next year.

What is EEX?

With more than 200 trading participants from 20 countries the energy exchange, which evolved as a result of the merger between LPX Leipzig Power Exchange and the Frankfurt-based European Energy Exchange in 2002, has by now become the most important energy exchange in continental Europe. It has gained the leading position in Europe in terms of the intensity of growth and the speed of expansion.