Energy Law Principles and COVID-19
| Published date | 01 August 2020 |
| Date | 01 August 2020 |
| DOI | 10.3366/gels.2020.0036 |
| Pages | 245-247 |
The COVID-19 crisis risks making a deep impact on our society. We can anticipate an aggressive negative economic framework if we don't act with the fast and clear financial plans and economic support programs to allow recovery in the shortest time possible. This is an imperative if the economic progress and decarbonization plans formulated in many societies and, especially, in the European Union are to be achieved.
Energy is a central sector of economic and social life. Its importance is highlighted in its capacity to support our essential service infrastructure at this critical time. It has ensured a minimum and necessary welfare for massively confined populations. We can confirm, without fear of error, that without power supply service provision and delivery of products would definitively drop, through the corresponding logistical chain; teleworking would be abruptly interrupted, and we would fall into social chaos, and the health crisis would intensify in an untenable manner, especially in Intensive Care Units.
We must come out of this crisis with a reinforced formulation of global energy law, fully congruent with the environmental budgets and guaranteeing advanced and predictable regulations, preventing the increase in commercial barriers and any other regressive and nostalgic temptation of inefficient monopolistic positions. Energy is so vital a component in our modern lives needs strong and robust legislation over the next years ahead. The energy sector needs law that has the mission to ensure a regulatory framework for the different energy resources, technologies and applications, that guarantees, directly and indirectly, over one third of the industrial and economic activity, as well as the telecommunications and information platforms that currently ensure, in great measure, the productive systems of our societies.
Therefore, the first mission of Energy Law is to guarantee the safety of supply, especially in these moments of exceptional crisis. But with it, under no circumstance must we give up on preparing the regulation frameworks to allow the near future society to integrate, in a specific manner, the climate requirements in the application of energy legal policies and instruments, which would unleash the planning of new and sustainable technologies and services for the public. Indeed, technological development will ensure new jobs are created and this is what...
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