Brussels - The European Commission geared up Tuesday for a potential battle royal with some of the world's biggest energy firms. On Wednesday, the Commission - the executive branch of the 27-member European Union - is set to propose a package of reforms aimed at liberalizing the bloc's multi-billion-dollar energy market.
It is a reform which supporters have called "revolutionary," saying that it promises consumers more choice, better value and increased security.
But it has sparked fierce criticism from politicians and energy firms both within the EU and beyond its borders.
Officials say that one key proposal will be the separation of the energy transmission and energy distribution businesses - meaning that companies which sell gas or electricity to consumers will not be allowed to control gas pipelines or electricity cables.
It is a proposal which has already raised fierce opposition in several EU states, including France and Germany. Energy firms wield considerable political power across Europe, and have fought tooth and nail to resist any encroachment on their rights in the past.
That opposition has led the EU's Energy Commissioner, Andris Piebalgs, to adopt a fall-back position.
Member states unwilling to "unbundle" their energy markets will have the option of leaving the transmission networks in the hands of their current owners, but passing their management into the hands of an Independent Systems Operator (ISO).
Such an ISO could be either privately-owned or state-run, but it would have to be demonstrably independent, an EC spokesman said.
While the debate within the EU is likely to focus on the "unbundling" aspect of the reforms, non-EU countries are likely to react equally strongly to a proposal which would limit the right of their energy firms to buy energy infrastructure in the EU.
Despite the frantic debate on energy security which was sparked in the EU after Russian gas monopolist Gazprom shut off gas supplies to Ukraine in January 2006, causing shortages across much of the EU, officials say that the proposal should not be seen as protectionism.
It would be unfair to make EU companies pull apart the strands of their "bundled" energy portfolios, only to allow a foreign company to buy up the strands to make its own bundle, the spokesman said.
But some Russian politicians have attacked the proposals, calling the EU's attitude "hysterical" and threatening to launch legal proceedings to give their companies access to EU markets.
One proposal, at least, is unlikely to cause such upheaval. EC officials say that an agency should be established to allow national energy-market regulators to make decisions on cross-border issues.
The agency would then advise the EC on how to act, a "completely original" development, the spokesman said.
The EC's proposals are only the first step in the reform process. The EU's 27 member states would have to approve them before they became law - a process which could prove stormy.
