Europe's competition chief will outline a strategy for opening up the gas and electricity markets with the aim of cutting high prices when she issues an eagerly awaited report today.
European Union Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes will give the first major indication of the direction of an investigation she opened last summer, which has taken on greater urgency because of mounting fears over the security of energy supplies.
Ms Kroes has said there are "worrying distortions of competition in EU energy markets", pointing to the power of old or former monopolies in many of the EU's 25 member states.
"While the level of concentration in electricity generation varies between member states, the level of incumbent market power has remained high, with generators able to utilise capacity in a way that affects price," she said in December.
She also said that potential competitors were being shut out of the market by long-term contracts for pipelines.
"Gas incumbents hardly trade gas on open markets at all," Ms Kroes said.
EU energy policymakers also see greater competition as a way to improve inter-connection among Europe's power networks, a key plank of a common European energy policy to be put to EU leaders at a summit next month.
Kroes has given little indication that she sees much progress in the European energy market and is expected to call for a stronger role by competition authorities to alter the market.
The state-by-state nature of the market concerns Kroes, who argues that because competition is weak at the national level, more must be done to encourage cross-border trade.
Ms Kroes has said competition enforcers can use merger policy, state aid control and antitrust enforcement to change things. But other instruments will also be needed.
One problem is long-established bottlenecks, including the lack of capacity to relay electricity across borders and a lack of coordination in using existing networks. Trading is also hampered by a lack of transparency in energy markets. Pricing fails to react to market conditions in the European Union, Ms Kroes has said. Instead, gas prices track oil.