The European Federation of Energy Traders (EFET) welcomes the go-live of day-ahead
market coupling in the North-West European (NWE) region on 4 February 2014. We recognise
the efforts of Transmission System Operators, CASC and Power Exchanges from the region, as
well as the support of Regulators, the European Commission and the Agency for the
Cooperation of Energy Regulators (ACER), in this important step towards the completion
of the integrated European electricity market.

Day-ahead market coupling in the NWE region will replace the tight volume coupling between
Central West Europe (CWE) and the Nordic region, and couple the UK market through the
BritNed and IFA cables. EFET regards the launch of NWE day-ahead market coupling as an
important milestone for the development of efficient coupling services in all timeframes and for
further cooperation between TSOs. We expect such cooperation to yield rapid improvements
in coordinated cross-border capacity calculation, the allocation of capacity rights in forward
timeframes at all borders, the development of efficient cross-border intraday continuous trading
markets and the compatibility of national balancing arrangements.

EFET also looks forward to the prompt achievement of fully-harmonised coupling of the dayahead
markets in Spain and Portugal with the NWE area, and to the extension of market
coupling to the Swiss market, notwithstanding prolonged discussions about governance. These
steps will pave the way for a large part of Central Eastern and South Eastern Europe to be
linked in an extended price coupling of regions. A Stakeholder Committee representing the
interests of wholesale market participants as network users should be set up to contribute to
and monitor these important developments.

For further information, please contact:
Irina Nikolova, EFET Policy and Communication Associate
E-mail: I.Nikolova@efet.org, Tel: +32 (0) 2 737 11 02