How have EU laws on electricity and gas supply stood up?

The ‘fitness check’ undertaken by the Commission evaluates the Gas Security of Supply Regulation of 2017 and the Electricity Risk Preparedness Regulation of 2019 as the two core regulations governing its energy security and is considered an important step in their revision, for which proposals are planned in the first half of 2026.

According to the review the evaluated framework, including the emergency regulations established in the context of the energy crisis following the start of the Ukraine-Russia conflict in 2021, has ensured a stable, secure and uninterrupted energy supply, and protected vulnerable and critical consumers.

Specifically, the assessment focussed on the five areas of effectiveness, efficiency, coherence, added value and relevance.

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With regard to effectiveness, the analysis found the two regulations were effective in achieving their objectives to a certain extent, increasing the EU's overall preparedness and making the EU more resilient to gas supply disruptions and electricity blackouts.

On efficiency, the analysis found that the framework's implementation costs consist of administrative and infrastructure costs, with the absolute costs low (in the order of a few hundreds of millions over the assessment period) compared to the extraordinary costs of potential supply crises (in the order of billions).

In terms of coherence, the regulations were found to be mostly consistent with each other and other EU policies and legislation during the evaluation period.

The regulations also were found to have generated significant EU added value by starting regional and EU-wide cooperation, enhancing security of electricity and gas supply and reducing the risks associated with supply disruptions.

However, while the regulations have been and will remain relevant for the EU's current security of supply challenges, there are new realities that they do not address yet and that will need to be considered in the upcoming revision.

Lessons learned

The report points to four key lessons that have emerged in the analysis.

First is that while the performance framework has been relatively cost efficient in the achievement of its objectives, there is room for simplification and for reducing administrative burden, making the whole framework more operational and actionable.

The EU energy system as a whole has been stable during the evaluation period, but the electricity sector is already experiencing a massive transformation with decarbonisation, digitalisation, electrification and sectoral integration. The particularities of ‘energy security’ and ‘security of supply’ will evolve along with this transformation, requiring adaptation. 

The gas and electricity sectors are very closely interlinked, and they may become even more integrated in the future. While some important differences persist between the two markets, there is room to significantly align the two regulations, with potential areas including crisis management, risk assessments and plans.

Last but not least the analysis has underlined both the added value of transparency provisions which spur coordination, and the lack of data on certain areas of security of electricity and gas supply (e.g. transparency and traceability of gas imports, timely availability of key data).

The findings of the analysis are due to feed into the upcoming revision of the energy security framework, which will aim to ensure that the EU energy system is sufficiently secure and resilient in a fast-evolving energy, climate and geopolitical context, a statement reads.

The 'fitness check' comes as a review of the governance regulation on the energy union is under way as a step towards preparing the energy and climate policy strategy for the period after 2030.