An Odd Pro-Market Trio: Germany, the UK and Norway

The European Union (EU) energy market is fragmented in terms of resources, policies and institutions. The North-Western market, centered on the UK, is liberalized (particularly compared to the Mediterranean and Eastern markets), and its gas-to-gas competition increasingly shapes the German and Central European market. This chapter examines the options that the biggest “internal” EU gas suppliers (i.e. including Norway) and market-players face in the context of the Energy Union proposal, their reactions to a more mercantilist policy agenda, and how their preferences and responses shape the energy union debate. These three, more liberal, players, represent the main internal opposition to possible modifications of the EU’s liberal approach to the political economy of energy.