20934 - EU law and natural gas

N. Lygeros
Translated from the Greek by Athena Kehagias

The natural gas market opening, is nothing more than the application of the EU law, and therefore it can not be presented as an unexpected function, nor as an issue of genuine negotiations, since it is the minimum which is required to be done in order to have a common context re: the subject.
Additionally we must stress the fact that Greece, is not a gas producer at present.
Therefore, the Gas Supply Companies in Attica, Thessaly and Thessaloniki, provide natural gas from abroad.
So what is the reason of the existence of an exclusive consumption of the retail network context?
This process is quite normal and it will pass through a certain market reform, up until its total liberation.
So there is no problem at a national level.
The only difference concerns exclusivelly the individuals involved in these Gas Supply Companies, because surely they will bet on the issue of exclusivity in relation to the construction, and network usage.
We therefore feel that the most important issue, especially now, is not the natural gas, but the actual network.
Because the natural gas supply alters, according to the contracts and the countries, whereas, it’s important for the network to remain Greek, and even more so, in a EU action field, so that we can benefit from the EU law security shield.
Because, since we function within it, and we utilize it in regards to the Exclusive Economic Zone issue, we must actively support it, in order for it to be more durable, and to be able to impose a difference when we are under pressure from countries outside the European Union trying to indirectly enter the European market, without abiding by the rules.
In actual fact, we obtain a safeguard which is very important, especially when we are taking into account the big picture of energean security, which of course is of greater importantance than the economic one, as it’s directly combining issues of high strategy.