EU might restrict foreign access to energy networks: report

BRUSSELS : The European Commission is considering restricting access by foreign energy groups, especially from Russia, to EU networks, the Financial Times said Thursday.

Citing a confidential working paper, the British business newspaper reported that the EU executive is looking at imposing reciprocity clauses on countries such as Russia and Saudi Arabia that restrict EU investment.

That was one option under consideration for a package of proposals aimed at infusing more competition into the energy sector, which the Commission is due to publish on September 19.

Commission spokesman Ferran Tarradellas acknowledged that Brussels "has been taking into consideration the concept of reciprocity" in preparing the proposals.

As part of the package, the Commission is expected to propose so-called ownership unbundling or splitting up large European gas and electricity groups to separate their delivery businesses from generation and supply operations.

However, many member states are opposed to the idea, partly because of concerns that the new, smaller companies would be vulnerable to takeovers from non-EU companies eager to get hold of distribution networks.

Many of those concerns are focused on Russian state-controlled energy giant Gazprom, which is widely known to have ambitions of gaining market share in Europe.

Commission spokesman Tarradellas said that unbundling would apply to all companies, European and otherwise.

"If there is unbundling, there will be unbundling for everyone,"