INTRODUCTION

Energy Union will require, of course,
action by individual Member States,
the EU government bodies must act
in no uncertain terms to set sounds
and criteria.
Europe must face two general
issues within the energy sphere: the
lack of diversification in energy
supply and its dependence on
Russian production (European
Commission, 2015). Dependence on
Russian natural gas has led, over
the last decade, the increase in
prices for consumers in much of
eastern and central Europe (EIA,
2014). In addition, the lack of
adequate infrastructure, has
prevented Member States sharing
or exchange of excess electricity
and natural gas (European
Commission, 2015). These are the
factors that originally led to the
former Polish Prime Minister,
Donald Tusk, to propose the Energy
Union (FleishmanHillard, 2015). As a
result, the EU Member States,
together with tips and committees,
have asked since 2002, achieving at
least a 10% interconnection
between the European energy
infrastructure. Over the past
thirteen years, the interconnection
requirements of 10% were
reiterated but little progress has
been made. Given the maturity of
the original proposal, the most
recent plan, released in February
2015, once again sets a target of
10% to be implemented by 2020
(FleishmanHillard, 2015). To achieve
this, each country has to show that
its infrastructure is built up to 10%
within the global network. These
interconnections are only part of
the wider package of energy Union
that seeks to bring Europe towards
a more efficient and effective future
and less based on coal.
Initiatives such as the Trans-
European Energy (TEN-E)
networks, in combination with the
Priority Interconnection Plan (PIP)
and other projects such as the plan
for the Baltic Energy Market
Interconnection (BEMIP), have
demonstrated desire to bring the
European energy network to new
level. However, actual progress has
not kept pace with the rhetoric
since twelve countries are still
below the established level of
interconnection (European
Commission, 2015). First of TEN-E,
which have set a ceiling of three
and a half years for permission
controls, it took an average of ten
to thirteen years to obtain a permit
for the grant of new infrastructure
projects.
The new guidelines have proven to
be an effective policy for the
development of energy
infrastructure (European
Commission, 2015). Nevertheless,
these initiatives lack of compliance
mechanisms to ensure the
completion of projects in a timely
manner. There has been significant
progress with some countries that
have passed the energy
interconnection level base (10%)
but, according to EU estimates, the
three countries will remain below
the 10% to reach the target date for
2020. This projection is a lack of
unity in the proposal for the energy
Union.
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