Annotation:
The general principles of the EC Treaty limit the scope of Member States’ intervention in the market, unless this intervention is clearly authorised by Community provisions, either in the Treaty itself or in secondary legislation.
The case law and regulatory developments on free movement of services stand to show that both the Commission and the ECJ will assess price regulating measures starting from the presumption that those measures will affect the functioning of the market, falling within the scope of EC Article 28. Should a Member State wish to avail itself of any of the derogations to the application of that provision, may these be one of the reasons enumerated by EC Article 30, or the mandatory requirements foreseen by the Cassis de Dijon ruling, it should be able to demonstrate that price regulation is, at the time, the most appropriate and less restrictive solution to protect the general interest or one of the values mentioned in EC Article 30.
It has been considered that Community Law encompassed price regulation mechanisms for the coal market during the validity period of the ECSC Treaty. Such mechanisms were enacted at the Community level, excluding unilateral intervention of individual Member States. In addition, the margin left by EC Law to Member States to intervene in the energy markets (electricity and gas) is rather narrow, and subject to rather strict conditions. Furthermore, the Commission deems that the possibility for Member States of regulating the wholesale and retail market conditions should be removed: it appears therefore quite clearly that the acquis communautaire does not support and justify State intervention on prices.
On the other hand, delegating that intervention to stakeholders would not be a viable solution, since EC Article 82, read in conjunction with EC Article 10, prevents Member States from enacting measures which may jeopardise the achievement of the goals of Competition Law.
The foregoing should also be read in the light of the basic features of EC Law, such as the direct effect of Community provisions and their prevalence on national legislation, without regards to its ranking. The principles of direct effect and supremacy empower individuals, whose positions may be affected by State measures incompatible with EC Law, to activate judicial remedies against the said measures. National judges and public administrations are bound by the duty not to apply internal rules conflicting with EC Law.