Limiting Regional Electricity Sector Integration and Market Reform: The Cases of France in the EU and Canada in the NAFTA Region

Recent decades have witnessed liberal reforms in electricity policy in Western countries and an emerging literature with prominent perspectives on how to analyze such reforms. Some analysts viewWestern countries as replicating the policy models of Britain and the United States, the first nations to adopt liberal reforms; others see European Union and North American Free Trade Agreement countries as subjected to regional electricity sector integration by supranational regional agreements. The authors challenge those views, arguing that national interests have limited domestic electricity market reforms in France and Canada despite their participation in regional electricity market integration projects. By examining surplus-producing acceleration in building nuclear and hydroelectric plants, initiatives to secure export access as part of regional market integration, and the ability to limit the effects of market access reciprocity domestically, this comparative analysis of France and Canada demonstrates that national interests can prevail in the intergovernmental formulation and domestic implementation of electricity policy.