Institutional Change in the Turkish Energy Markets

Abstract

By enacting the Electricity Market Law in February 2001 and the Natural Gas Market Law in May 2001, respectively, Turkey began reforming the institutional environment of the Turkish energy industry. The aim was to unbundle the state-owned monopolistic structures of the markets by separating vertically. The new legal structure has de jure changed the pre-reform institutional structure of the energy markets. In other words, the legal change has aimed to introduce competition to the Turkish energy industry. In order to ensure this objective, as an independent regulatory agency with full regulatory discretions over both the electricity market and the natural gas market, Energy Market Regulatory Authority (EMRA) was established. In this context, the chapter aims to review the process of institutional change and to assess the current institutional issues in the energy markets of Turkey.