The political economy of network industries in the European Union
In the last three decades, network industries have experienced major changes the world over. It can be presumed that they will continue to do so, driven by technological and economic changes and also by the campaigns of interest groups framed by institutional and ideological parameters. In the European Union these changes have seen a growing degree of involvement at the community level, without reaching the point of creating European networks. Paradoxically, this could be beneficial for the resolution of certain dilemmas that arise in an electricity sector where a European demos is not well established, a factor that is problematic in other aspects. A consolidated European demos would require a consolidated European political arena, European public with European political parties and lobbyists working at a European level, and so on. The reason this lack of development of a European demos may be favourable to sectors such as electricity or communications is that it can stop public interventions in these sectors from being made into political issues. Although the European Union has already played an important role in increasing competition in these sectors, it may play a much more important role in a future that advances towards a market that is truly integrated, in which networks of a real European scope exist.
ODS
Associate Professor in the Department of Applied Economics at the UAB and a researcher for both the Public-Private Sector Research Center of the IESE and the Instituto de Economía de Barcelona. He was awarded his Doctoral Degree in Economics from the European University Institute in Florence in December 2000, and was a Researcher at the London Business School from 1999 to 2002, in addition to a spell as a Visiting Researcher at the University of California, Berkeley, in 2008. He has produced various international academic publications focusing on Regulation and Economics Policy.