Fingrid's Juha Kekkonen to serve as the Chairman of European Transmission System Operators

European grid operators established an association ETSO (European Transmission System Operators) on 29 June 2001 in Brussels. The association consists of 32 companies in 15 EU countries plus Norway and Switzerland. These countries together form the internal electricity market area. ETSO's executive body is the Steering Committee, and Mr Juha Kekkonen, Executive Vice President of the Finnish system operator Fingrid Oyj, was elected its Chairman.The fluent functioning of the European electricity market currently suffers from electricity transmission restrictions and heterogeneous rules both within countries and between them. This is why ETSO intends to develop uniform rules and procedures through which electricity trading could be facilitated. The practical issues include for instance compensations for cross-border transits, management of bottleneck situations or co-operation between system operators and electricity exchanges. Another major objective is to ensure the technical reliability of the system. ETSO works in close co-operation with the European Commission, national regulators and various market parties.