European Utility Companies

EU enlargement coupled with planned changes in EU VAT legislation for cross-border supplies of gas and electricity will have a far-reaching impact on the VAT treatment of supplies made by European utility companies.

For utilities the enlargement of the internal market will also bring a liberalisation of the accession countries' markets. For example it will abolish requirements for energy trading companies established in the European Union to set up a permanent establishment in an accession country in order to do business there. However in some cases accession country governments...