At the height of the energy price crisis, the political pressure on the EU to do something about sky-high bills was so great that Brussels announced it would look at rewriting the rules that underpin electricity markets.

This was a huge deal, as officials had previously insisted that those rules were not to be touched and that messing with them might prove to be disastrous for the 27 countries that make up the EU.

But the price crisis was too substantial to ignore. Some countries announced support schemes that totalled more than 5 per cent of their GDPs, while everyday voters struggled to understand why expensive gas prices were pushing up the price of cheap renewables.

Brussels responded by saying that the current market "no longer works". That prompted a scramble from governments to outline what they thought the rules review should entail and which of their vested interests should be protected.

Greece suggested splitting the energy market...