5. Conclusion

Proponents of liberalism believe that competition has its virtues, including in the provision of public services of an industrial and commercial nature, as it encourages efficiency and enables the best choices to be made under constraint. The extreme electricity prices observed in Europe in 2022 are the result of an exceptional situation, and in the end, the European electricity market has made it possible to avoid load shedding and even blackouts. All we need to do now is wait for the markets to return to cruising speed.

Opponents of electricity sector liberalization point out that a short-term market with volatile prices has never sent the right signals to investors, either in the 2010s when wholesale prices were insufficient to finance fixed costs, or since 2022 due to uncertainties over future costs. They believe that both producers and consumers need relative...