European Commission - DG TREN

The study aimed at determining whether externalisation would be economically beneficial and would better contribute to attaining the objectives of the future EU programme of Community action in the field of energy. The study had to take into account the factors that might positively or negatively influence effectiveness when shifting from internal to external management. It addressed the following questions:

What are the key activities of the future “Intelligent Energy for Europe” Programme which may be externalised, and to what extent?

Feasibility study and cost-benefit analysis of externalisation of seven activities carried out (or to be carried out) by the services of DG TREN. On the basis of the review of existing documentation, interviews in and out of the EC, we studied the costs and benefits of several options (decentralisation, devolution and outsourcing) on each activity.The main difficulty to overcome was the high technicity of the activities, as well as the social acceptability of the externalisation process.