Draft Guidelines on Article 22 – An ERGEG Public Consultation Paper

Article 22 of Directive 2003/55/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 26 June 2003 aims at creating incentives for efficient investments in new infrastructure projects by allowing certain exceptions on TPA and tariffs provisions. Findings from ERGEG’s paper on European Regulators’ Experience with Article 22 exemptions of Directive 2003/55/EC [E07-TNI-01-04] showed that there are varying practices in the interpretation and application of Article 22 among national regulators. Furthermore, the widespread application of Art. 22 has the potential to exempt most of the new gas infrastructure in the forthcoming years, leading to a situation where article 22 becomes the rule rather than the exemption.

Against these findings ERGEG has prepared the Draft Guidelines on Article 22 – An ERGEG Public Consultation Paper [E07-GFG-31-07]. The Draft Guidelines are designed within the legal framework set by existing Art. 22. The aim is to provide guidance in the decision making process in the application of Art. 22 as a way of filling a gap prior to / in the absence of the development of any binding guidelines. These Draft Guidelines constitute a harmonized and transparent framework for competent authorities when deciding on exemption procedures.

The publication of these Draft Guidelines is complementary to the work being undertaken by the European Commission in this field and is being published in advance of the EC work in order to provide NRAs with a view of the stakeholders’ positions.

ERGEG requests stakeholder views on the questions raised in this Consultation Paper, which broadly addresses issues such as: (i) the scope of eligible infrastructure; (ii) the role of open seasons; (iii) the appropriateness of several assessment criteria; (iv) consultations with neighbouring countries; (v) partial and full exemptions versus proportionality principle; and (vi) exemptions’ review. Please see the cover note and the instructions at the consultations documents tab.

Interested parties are invited to submit comments by 2 May 2008 by email to article22@ergeg.org.

Following the end of the public consultation period, ERGEG will publish all comments received from stakeholders. Any respondents wishing ERGEG to treat its contribution as confidential should clearly state this in their reply and endeavor to give any confidential material in annexes that can be separated from publishable non-confidential material.

Any questions relating to this document should in the first instance be directed to:

Mrs. Fay Geitona
Tel: +32 2 788 73 30
Fax: +32 2 788 73 50
Email: fay.geitona@ceer.eu