Macroeconomic Context of Economic Reforms in Electricity Sector of Transition Countries

The paper addresses the question of macroeconomic environment and its impact on economic reforms in electricity sector of CEE countries that have become new EU Member States and SEE countries. The research is based on the thesis that macroeconomic drivers and macroeconomic context of the economic reforms in electricity sector considerably differ between developed and transition countries. The analysis aimed to test the broadly accepted assumption that regulatory reforms and liberalized environment should generally result in cost reflective prices and better quality of services. Our analysis shows that the reform results in CEE and SEE transition countries have been significantly different. Most of new EU Member States have recorded high increase in electricity prices as the result of cost reflective tariffs level and gradual phase-out of direct and indirect electricity price subsidies. Though these cost-based tariffs have had a positive impact on efficiency improvements, they have also harmed social welfare and competitiveness in CEECs. On the other hand, most of the SEECs (except Croatia) are faced with low collection rates and still have low tariffs that do not reflect costs of supply. The other objective of the reform - quality of services has been perceived high in all CEECs, while in most SEE countries the quality of the electricity is still the obstacle to business environment