Energy Commissioner Oettinger and Prime Minister of Slovenia Borut Pahor inaugurated on 3 March the Agency for the Cooperation of Energy Regulators (ACER) in Ljubljana, Slovenia. The Agency will help removing technical obstacles to cross-border energy trade, and will coordinate activities of national energy regulators helping to solve possible conflicts between them. The opening of the agency coincides with the coming into force of the third energy package on internal market.

The  Agency for the Cooperation of Energy Regulators (ACER) was established by Regulation (EC) Nº 713/2009 of 13 July 2009, as part of the Third energy package which provides an effective regulatory framework for the development of open, integrated and competitive energy markets in the EU. As highlighted by Commissioner Oettinger at the inauguration of ACER's activities, both its governance and powers to take binding decisions are a step change to the cooperation platform which the European Regulators' Group for Electricity and Gas (ERGEG) could provide to national regulators.

With this instrument, Commission makes one more step towards one of its main priorities set in the Europe 2020 Strategy, which is to remove all barriers to the internal energy market so that energy can flow freely everywhere in the EU. The objective is tfor single European energy market to become a reality for all businesses and consumers by 2014.

Agency for the Cooperation of Energy Regulators: main responsibilities

• Drafting framework guidelines for the operation of cross-border gas pipelines and electricity networks. Based on these guidelines the operators of pipelines and electricity networks will establish concrete rules;
• Checking that these rules are consistent with these framework guidelines;
• Reviewing the implementation of the EU-wide ten-year network development plans as well as national network development plans;
• Deciding cross-border issues, if national regulators cannot agree or ask ACER to intervene. This includes the method by which operators can sell the very lucrative capacities during peak hours, when demand is high;
• Monitoring the functioning of the internal market, including retail prices, available network access for electricity produced from renewables and respect of consumer rights. Each year the agency will publish a report on its findings and it may suggest to the Commission and the European Parliament measures that help remove barriers to the completion of the internal market.