The Agency for the Cooperation of Energy Regulators – ACER – has not being shy of stating its need for extra funding so it can properly monitor energy markets and other responsibilities it will assume under REMIT.
The Ljubljana-based agency has laid out what it needs in its 2015 work programme – 15 new staff. This includes five monitoring officers, one legal officer, three policy officers, three IT officers and three IT assistants. But that number is just to fulfill the more basic requirements. If ACER is to take a more active role in monitoring markets, the agency would need 12 market monitors with two assistants, it said. And the prospect of splitting the market monitoring department would call for a new manager. So all in all, ACER estimates it needs 30 new staff to fulfill the brief the European Commission set out in its REMIT proposal. That would be quite an influx of new staff.
Here is a story I previously wrote about ACER’s need for more resource.