The European Commission has decided to refer Belgium to the Court of Justice of the European Union for failing to correctly implement EU electricity and gas market rules under the Third Energy Package (Electricity Directive 2009/72/EC and Gas Directive 2009/73/EC). The Commission sent a letter of formal notice in October 2014, followed by a reasoned opinion in February 2016; since Belgium has not addressed all the issues raised, the Commission decided to refer the case to the Court of Justice of the European Union.
Belgium has failed to transpose some rules on the national regulator's powers: the national regulator CREG can only make proposals to the Belgian government, which takes binding decisions on electricity and gas undertakings and which sets the conditions for connection to the electricity and gas networks (conditions set by the regulator according to EU law). In addition, Belgian electricity and gas transmission system operators (TSOs) are not in a position to fully ensure non-discriminatory access of electricity or gas suppliers to the grid, since the law does not ensure that TSOs actually control the entire electricity or gas network for which they are responsible.
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