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The 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro spearheaded concerns about the environment and the future wellbeing of Earth and human civilization. It highlighted the importance of green energy and sustainable energy development. The European Union´s Council progressed forward, spring boarding off of the environmental concerns and scientific knowledge, to establish and develop regulations, laws and tools to promote green and sustainable energy in Europe. This analysis will focus on the regulations, laws, and directives of the European Union´s primary energy market. It describes the background of the main European Council´s energy sector regulation documents. This work provides a general overview, highlights the main goals, and reports on the mechanisms, both proposed and in effect, used to reach these established goals. Lastly, it will investigate the penalty system, or lack thereof, and discuss the difficulties in measuring its results.

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Jan Micha Krawczyk, Expert at KISE, The Krakow Institute for Sustainable Energy, Research and calculations in projects at AGH University of Science and Technology, Master of Science at University of Iceland/Akureyri, RES The School for Renewable Energy Science, Master of Science at AGH University of Science and Technology in Krakow

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