This book was originally published by Claeys and Casteels, now formally part of Edward Elgar Publishing. Infrastructures are the backbone of any economy and energy is vital to our way of life. Electricity transmission, gas and oil pipelines, smart grids, storage of energy and later on CO2 transport are essential elements of our present and future energy systems. The energy and climate policies conducted by the European Union since 2007 have led to the Third Energy Package governing the internal electricity and gas markets, to the Directive setting the target of 20% of renewable sources of energy by 2020, to the Energy Efficiency Directive and, most recently, to the Regulation establishing the guidelines on trans-European energy infrastructures and to the new financing programme called 'Connecting Europe Facility' (CEF). In five years' time, national energy policies have been drastically reshaped by the EU Directives and Regulations, now based on Article 194 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union. It is now time to understand fully the importance of these regulatory changes and the resulting 'Europeanisation' of the energy policy.

This book examines the latest developments of the European Union's energy policy and particularly the way security of energy supply is taken into account and handled. As one of the three objectives of the EU energy policy, security of supply emerged as a central element of the policy after the January 2009 gas crisis, and now with the consequences of the events in Fukushima. The contributions to the book are made by the most informed people on the various subjects given their professional position. It analyses the extensive developments of the concept toward energy security, the impact of the third internal market package on its reinforcement and the major role to be played by infrastructures in ensuring physically the security of supply. The book comments on the most recent and relevant instruments adopted by the European Union; in the field of oil, the so-called Oil stocks directive; and gas, the Regulation on Security of Gas Supply. In the field of electricity, it will report on the experience of the Transmission System Operators working together in the European Network (ENTSO-E) to guarantee security of supply. The external dimension of the EU energy policy will be explained in as far as it aims at security of supply. Three illustrative cases are particularly studied: the Southern gas corridor development, the January 2009 gas crisis, and the Baltic Energy Market Interconnection Plan. The relevant EU legislative texts and the recent communications of the Commission on the subject are appended, to offer the direct references of what is discussed in the various sections.