TOPICAL LEGAL ISSUES OF COMPETITION DEVELOPMENT IN THE ENERGY SECTOR OF THE EUROPEAN UNION
This article is devoted to analysis of some topical legal issues of competition development in the EU energy sector. It addressed the sources of competitive legal regulation of energy relations in the EU, the trends of the realization of general and specific competition rules in the context of energy relations, the issues of some exceptions in the context of the competition law regime of the EU and features of application of EU competition rules to import and export energy relations. Present work proves the following theses: 1) liberalization of the EU energy market through the progressive strengthening and expansion of the regulation concerned; 2) development of special secondary EU energy law has an impact on the practice of application of the general antitrust provisions of primary EU law; 3) the regime established by the special EU secondary energy law makes more harder the process of invest in a new energy infrastructure, and this fact demonstrates the need for exceptions in respect of new major infrastructure projects, but such rules of exceptions leave too much space for the subjective discretion of law enforcement agencies and consequently pose a risk of uneven and inconsistent practices; 4) the necessary investments in a new EU infrastructure require not only some exceptions at the level of EU Member States but also introduce compulsory network planning and EU-level support for projects of “general interest”; 5) in the framework of the Energy Union Strategy it can be seen the EU’s desire to disseminate internal rules on import-export relations, but in relations with third countries not intending to join the EU, this desire has an objective political and legal constraints limits which are leading, inter alia, from the doctrine of “international comity”, “state actions” and “state coercion”.