Conference on Single Market in Energy took place at Prague

Prime Minister of the Czech Republic Petr Nečas, EU Energy Commissioner Günther Oettinger, Czech Industry and Trade Minister Martin Kocourek and Secretary of State for European Affairs Vojtěch Belling emphasized in their contributions the importance of establishment of a functioning single energy market for both Czech Republic and the EU. Petr Nečas emphasized the necessity to seek balance of ambitions and goals with regard to energy efficiency and addressed the role of effective market mechanisms for energy security.

Günther Oettinger welcomed the fact that energy policy developed to a priority of the Czech government. Furthermore, he stressed not only the need to complete the internal energy market by 2014, but also the role of the third energy package in this endeavour. He further described the mission of the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) in a greater detail. Martin Kocourek presented the situation in the Czech Republic and discoursed on the issue of market coupling. Vojtěch Belling described energy as one of the long-term priorities of the Czech Government and European integration itself.

Three panel discussions followed. Evžen Tošenovský, Vice-Chairman of the Committee on Industry, Research and Energy of the European Parliament (EP), Martin Herrmann, Chairman of the Board of RWE and Alan Svoboda of ČEZ – who pointed out the successful implementation of the third liberalization package in the Czech Republic – commented on links of national markets into single European energy market.

In the second panel discussion, participants exchanged their views and experience on legislative field. Among prominent speakers, there were Chairman of Energy Regulatory Office (ERO) Alena Vitásková, Fay Geitona from the Agency for the Co-operation of Energy Regulators and Harry Boyd-Carpenter from the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.

The subsequent third panel discussion was devoted to the potential of infrastructure network. Václav Bartuška, envoy of the Czech Republic for Energy Security, deputy Minister of Industry František Pazdera and representatives of CEPRO, CEPS and NET4GAS presented their contributions and took part in the following discussion.