Inaugural meeting of the ACER’s Board of Regulators
On 4 and 5 May 2010, energy regulators from the EU met in Brussels to held an inaugural meeting of a Board of Regulators of new EU Agency, formally called the Agency for the Cooperation of Energy Regulators (ACER in short), as well as the General Assembly meeting of CEER (The Council of European Energy Regulators).
Mr. Woszczyk, the Vice - President of Energy Regulatory Office, has been representing Poland at both inaugural ACER’s Board of Regulators and General Assembly CEER meetings.
At the meeting, Lord Mogg, current Chairman of CEER/ERGEG and the non-executive Chair of Ofgem, the UK regulatory body, was elected as the first Chair of ACER's Board of Regulators and Mr Boltz, the Chair of E-control, the Austrian energy regulatory authority and Vice-chairman of CEER, was elected as the Vice-chair (each appointed for a 2.5 year renewable period).
On 6 May, Administrative Board of the European Agency for the Cooperation of Energy Regulators (ACER) designated Mr. Pototschnig as the first executive director of the agency, following a favourable opinion from the ACER Board of Regulators. Before formal appointment, Mr Pototschnig will appear before the Industry, Trade and Energy (ITRE) Committee in the European Parliament.
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Board of Regulators (BoR) is the Agency’s consultative body. Among its others duties, the BoR approves the work program of the Agency for the coming year and provides guidance to the Director in the execution of its tasks.
The Board of Regulators consists of senior representatives (one member and one alternate) of 27 national regulators from every EU member state and one non-voting representative of the European Commission.
ACER was established by the European Parliament and the Council Regulation of July 13, 2009. ACER becomes fully operational in March 2011. ACER’s seat will be in Ljubljana, Slovenia. ACER will at European level complement the regulatory tasks performed at national level. It will play a key role in the integration of the EU’s markets in electricity and natural gas, providing a framework at EU level for national regulators to cooperate and providing greater clarity and regulatory certainty. ACER’s existence addresses the regulatory gap on cross-border issues and will provide regulatory oversight of the cooperation between transmission system operators.
More information on ACER here: http://ec.europa.eu/energy/gas_electricity/acer/acer_en.htm.