The internationalization of the European electricity industry: The case of Vattenfall

This article explains how the Swedish state-owned electricity company Vattenfall managed to become the most successful foreign player on the German electricity market. It does so by providing an in-depth historical analysis of Vattenfall's transformation from a national into an international actor, a process that proved long and difficult. The article starts out by identifying the transformation pressures that Vattenfall faced in the late 1980s. It then continues with a detailed analysis of Vattenfall's response to these pressures, culminating in a seemingly sudden wave of major acquisitions in Germany in the period 1999–2002.