The liberalisation and diversification of the European electricity industry: A country-based view

European Commission directives for the liberalisation and deregulation of the European electricity industry were adopted almost at the same time in several nations. But each country had specific market structures and internal conditions. The aim of this paper is to analyse descriptively if and how differences between the home countries of European electricity firms affected, quantitatively and/or qualitatively, their diversification strategies after liberalisation. Research consisted of collecting and analysing data on the strategic actions of the main European electricity firms. The analysis covers a period of ten years (1998-2007), i.e. the first ten years after the first European directive. This paper sheds light on the link between preliberalisation specificities and attributes of a national electricity market and the postliberalisation diversification strategy of its national electricity companies. © 2010 The Braybrooke Press Ltd.