Communication from the Commission to the European Parliament and the Council. Amendment of the financial statement accompanying Regulation (EU) No 1227/2011

Regulation (EU) No 1227/2011 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 25 October 2011 on wholesale energy market integrity and transparency (hereafter 'REMIT') provides for new stringent rules on wholesale energy trading. The main objective of the Regulation is to prevent use of insider information and other forms of market abuse which distort wholesale energy prices and can result in businesses and consumers pay more for their energy than they need.

REMIT makes the Agency for the Cooperation of Energy Regulators (hereafter 'ACER') responsible for independent monitoring of all relevant wholesale energy transactions and checking whether the rules are followed. Therefore, ACER's role is crucial for the proper implementation of REMIT and ensuring that wholesale energy markets across Europe function properly.

The resources originally foreseen in the Financial Annex to REMIT do not fully reflect the actual financial needs of the Agency. This is partly because several of the tasks for ACER were further elaborated during the legislative process. In addition ACER has run several public tenders to procure REMIT related ICT services which revealed substantially higher costs than expected. This requires a re-assessment of these costs as the resources currently envisaged for 2013 are insufficient to perform the prescribed tasks.

According to detailed estimates provided in the attached financial statement, in 2013 ACER will need funds of €3.139 million to develop its REMIT related ICT systems. However, in the approved budget for 2013 ACER only received an allocation of €0.150 million for this purpose. The additional financial needs for 2013 are therefore €2.989 million. These funds will be provided budget-neutrally as they will be financed by redeployment of existing resources of DG ENER in 2013.

On the basis of elements mentioned above, it is necessary to update the legislative financial statement. The new statement including a detailed explanation of the financial needs is attached herewith.

EUR-Lex: COM(2013)431: Follow the progress of this communication through the decision-making procedure http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/HIS/?uri=COM:2013:431:FIN

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