Measuring the effects of EU single-market policies on Europe’s power sector in 1996 is an exercise in reading both what’s visible in the data and what is only partially documented. The mid-90s brought a surge of legislation and, soon after, a wave of restructuring—especially in the electricity industry. The intention was clear: break down national silos, open up cross-border trade, and make the sector more competitive. The result, as traced through ISIC 3510—electric power generation, transmission, and distribution—was a story of consolidation, ambition, and, sometimes, uncertainty.
The first step is to compile a complete list of power firms under ISIC 3510 across the EU member states for the years bracketing the single-market push. In practice, these records can be messy. Many firms were state-owned or tightly regulated until the reforms began, and not all updated their registrations in a uniform way. Still, the registry provides a baseline for both the number of firms and the structure of the market, at least as recorded on paper.
With the baseline in hand, the next challenge is to identify where and when consolidation took place. Cross-border mergers and acquisitions are central here. News archives, financial filings, and, in some cases, European Commission competition rulings all leave a trail of deals—some headline-grabbing, others less publicized. It’s rarely enough to count surviving entities: a merger may leave a firm with two, three, or more distinct subsidiaries, still reporting under their original names. For this reason, analysts often map out corporate families, noting the parent companies and their cross-border holdings as the wave of consolidation progresses.
Correlating mergers with changes in output requires a careful touch. Company annual reports, Eurostat energy statistics, and national regulator disclosures provide figures on total power generation—usually in gigawatt-hours or a local equivalent. By matching output before and after a merger or acquisition, it is possible to see whether the consolidation led to increases in generation, improved efficiency, or, sometimes, strategic cutbacks. Not all output changes are merger-driven, of course; market demand, fuel price shifts, and policy incentives all play a role. Still, when several firms merge and output rises in their combined footprint, there is at least a partial link.
A further step is to look for cross-border trade flows in electricity. The EU’s market reforms were intended to make it easier to sell power across national boundaries. Transmission system operator (TSO) data, interconnector capacity statistics, and market coupling reports all help to trace whether, post-merger, firms were able to serve customers beyond their old home markets. Sometimes output shifted not because a firm generated more electricity, but because it sold more across borders, leveraging new transmission rights or customer relationships.
There are persistent ambiguities. Not every deal classified as a “cross-border merger” resulted in true operational integration. Some firms continued to run as largely autonomous units, keeping distinct brands and, in practice, competing with their new siblings. Others embarked on rapid standardization—streamlining plants, workforce, or procurement to realize promised efficiencies.
Documentation is crucial at every step. Each merger, acquisition, or joint venture should be logged with its date, participants, and claimed rationale. Likewise, every data source for output, market share, and cross-border sales should be cited. This allows both for replication and for future corrections, should new evidence emerge or definitions shift.
Taken together, ISIC 3510 firm data, paired with merger histories and output figures, offer a window into how the EU’s single-market policies began reshaping European electricity. The map is far from static. Boundaries blur, deals are renegotiated, and some reforms yield slower change than policymakers might have hoped. Still, by tracking the flow of consolidation and its effects on output and cross-border trade, it is possible to trace the evolving shape of a sector at the heart of Europe’s integration project.