Press Release: Opening up of energy markets: ten Member States have still not transposed the new EU rules

The European Commission on 16 March 2005 sent reasoned opinions to Germany, Belgium, Estonia, Ireland, Lithuania, Latvia, Sweden, Greece, Spain and Luxembourg for failure to transpose into national law either one or both of the two EU Directives on the internal gas and electricity markets. In October 2004 the Commission had sent letters of formal notice to 18 countries and this was now the second stage in the infringement proceedings. The situation had improved, but the Commission regretted that ten Member States had still not transposed the Directives nearly two years after they had been adopted in June 2003.