Deregulation and Liberalization in the European Electricity Sector

Since the 1990’s, we have witnessed a global process of deregulation, liberalization and privatization in key economic sectors. This paper focuses on the way this process has evolved in a key sector - electricity - in a very important region - Europe. The paper shows that the European track record is quite mixed; i.e., increased competition in some countries and no discernible improvement in efficiency in others. Given that in some cases the whole reliability of the electricity supply system has been challenged, serious questions should be asked about the desirability of the whole process.