Agency for the Cooperation of Energy Regulators (ACER) - human resources necessary to fulfil its statutory mandate to monitor energy wholesale markets

27.3.2015

Question for oral answer O-000028/2015
to the Commission
Rule 128
Jerzy Buzek, on behalf of the Committee on Industry, Research and Energy

Regulation (EU) No 1227/2011 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 25 October 2011 on wholesale energy market integrity and transparency (REMIT) envisages a comprehensive monitoring framework for wholesale markets to detect and deter market abuse. How does the Commission evaluate the significance of these provisions for achieving a well-functioning internal energy market and related objectives of the Energy Union? Conversely, in the Commission’s view, what would be the potential consequences of a failure to effectively monitor energy wholesale markets?

REMIT assigns the Agency for the Cooperation of Energy Regulators (ACER) a key role in wholesale market monitoring. In particular, ACER will have to perform the initial screening, analysis, and assessment of a large number of market transactions as from 7 October 2015. Is the Commission aware that owing to a lack of human resources, ACER will not be able to perform these tasks and fulfil its mandate under REMIT and that the Agency has highlighted this problem on several occasions?

On the basis of a detailed analysis of tasks, ACER estimates that it requires 45 additional full-time staff members to operate the new monitoring framework, which would be comparable to human resources deployed by the US Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to perform similar tasks. However, so far the Agency has only been authorised 15 additional staff members for REMIT. Does the Commission recognise that this is insufficient? Is the Commission furthermore aware of the fact that the Agency will not be able to fill this gap by redeploying resources internally, given the need to maintain and intensify activities in other areas and because of the different and very specific expertise (in energy and financial trading) required? Does the Commission agree that it is equally unrealistic to fill the gap with experts from national regulators which are also constrained in their staffing and which have to fulfil their own responsibilities under REMIT?

Can the Commission commit to proposing in its draft budget for 2016 the necessary appropriations for making the urgently needed additional human resources available to the Agency in order to make sure that the REMIT provisions are fully implemented and enforced?