ENERGY MARKET INTEGRITY AND TRANSPARENCY : REMIT REGULATION IN FORCE.

The Regulation on wholesale energy market integrity and transparency (REMIT), which entered into force on 28 December 2011, prohibits insider trading' and requires wholesale gas and electricity market participants to disclose all information relevant to their market engagements. It sets up a monitoring system for transactions, lays down rules for investigation of suspicious activities and for penalties in case of infringement.

The regulation makes it compulsory for each member state to have a register of traders and establishes a similar European register, administered by the Agency for the Cooperation of Energy Regulators (ACER). The Ljubljana-based organisation, established in 2010 as a key element in the third energy package, supervises national regulatory authorities' market monitoring and data collection activities. It also serves as a point of connection to share information and submit annual reports to the Commission. ACER can require national authorities to conduct investigations, but enforcement and sanctioning will remain under national control.

ACER has access to data on transactions on trading allowances of CO2 emissions in order to ensure that cross-market and cross-commodity abuses are supervised, while the Commission may come up with a separate legislative proposal on transparency, integrity and supervision of the EU carbon market. As for sanctions, the regulation demands proportionate, dissuasive and effective penalties at national levels, while noting the possibility of a future Commission proposal to harmonise minimum...