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Call for Papers: OGEL Special Issue on "State Aid and Competition Rules in the Energy Sector"

15 October 2025

OGEL Energy Law Journal (OGEL, ISSN 1875-418X, www.ogel.org) invites submissions for a Special issue covering antitrust issues in energy. The guest editors for this Special Issue are Prof. Angus Johnston (Professor of Law and Hoffmann Fellow in Law, Faculty of Law and University College, University of Oxford) and Prof. Theodoros Iliopoulos (Visiting Professor: Hasselt University, Faculty of Law; VUB, Brussels School of Governance and Vesalius College; and National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Law School).

The Energy sector remains a crucial area for markets and competition, while States continue to subsidise energy projects and produce regulation that addresses the energy sector. Further, this area has faced extensive recent challenges from geopolitics, changing economic and technological conditions, and political pressures at different levels (international, EU and domestic). The above situation makes the attainment of energy-related policy objectives within an environment of functioning markets even more challenging. National Competition Authorities and Energy Regulators, and the European Commission, continue to pursue investigations and enforcement actions across the ever-expanding range of sectors that are crucial to the energy transition, environmental protection and economic growth. Questions about the compliance of the incumbents' conduct with competition law and the terms of energy market liberalisation in different Member States continue to arise regularly (see e.g. Case C-245/24 LUKOIL Bulgaria [1] or Case C-394/21, Bursa Română de Mărfuri [2]). Various recent judgments of the Court of Justice of the EU on State aid and renewable electricity (such as Case C-558/22, Fallimento Esperia [3], Case C-702/20 DOBELES HES [4] or Case C-470/20 AS Veejaam [5], and the CJEU cases concerning German aid schemes - Case C-405/16 P, Germany v. Commission; [6] Case T-409/21 Germany v. Commission[7]) - still raise questions, not only about the application of State aid criteria, but also about the appropriate scope of EU scrutiny and Member State autonomy in these fields. At the same time, the Commission's compatibility assessment conditions are changing, in an effort to ensure that green light will be given in a timely fashion to public funding for projects that serve energy transition objectives without disproportionately harming the functioning of the internal market. For example, the combination of the recently-adopted EU State Aid Framework supporting the Clean Industrial Deal (CISAF, https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_25_1598, June 2025)[8] and the pre-existing 2021 Guidelines on State Aid for Climate, Environmental protection and Energy (CEEAG) seeks to offer a stable and predictable regime for Member States and undertakings. And of course the recent Paks II judgment (Case C-59/23 P Austria v. Commission)[9] will generate further interesting implications concerning the interaction between State aid, procurement and, perhaps, other areas of EU law, when future assessments of State aid schemes are made.

We encourage submission of relevant papers, studies, and comments (see guidelines below regarding the minimum requirements) on various aspects of this subject. The topics may cover all aspects of State aid and competition law enforcement (vertical/horizontal cooperation agreements, abuse of dominance, merger control, etc.) relevant for oil, gas, electricity and other energy sub-sectors including hydrogen, storage, LNG and nuclear. Note that the references above to various cases and issues are indicative, and authors are warmly encouraged to submit papers / proposals about other cases, CJEU judgments, Commission decisions and other developments that are relevant to the special issue.

Proposals and papers should be submitted to the editors at your earliest convenience.

Editors:

Please CC info@ogel.org when you submit material or have any questions.

Guidelines

The minimum word count of articles should be 5000 words (excluding footnotes, endnotes, appendices, tables, summary etc.) - longer articles are very much welcomed. Articles should include summaries (150-200 words). The layout of the articles should conform to OGEL's submission guidelines available at: www.ogel.org/contribute.asp (more information available upon request).

Articles accepted for publication ahead of the schedule of publication can also go through OGEL's on-line advance publication process allowing your work reach its target audience as soon as the paper completes peer review and editing process.

Kindly forward this call for papers to colleagues who may be interested in contributing to the special issue.

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