Over the past decade, consumers' electricity costs have risen disproportionally compared with the average inflation rate, mostly as the result of increased network tariffs and taxes. This development appears to be at odds with the stated purpose of introducing competition into the electricity sector through implementation of the EU Electricity Directive to realize benefits for end users in terms of lower prices as well as better quality of goods and services. This article discusses the conditions under which the price of electricity can be considered reasonable according to the Directive. The meaning of the term Breasonable^may depend on a number of factors, and it is necessary to distinguish between the various components of an energy bill. The various objectives of the directive could lead to diverging interpretations, even when applied to the same component of the bill, the supply price. According to the underlying market principle, reasonable may imply Beconomically efficient.^However, in line with the principle of universal service for households, reasonable should be understood to mean Baffordable.^The article also examines the conditions under which a substantial rise of consumer energy costs due to increasing network tariffs can be justified. The focus of this article is on electricity, although, as stipulated under the Third Gas Directive, a consumer's right to pay a reasonable price, while enjoying universal service, applies equally to gas. Therefore, the observations outlined in this paper are relevant also for gas consumers.

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This article argues that Cobet’s philological and text-critical work deserves to be understood on its own terms, rather than being dismissed for its inconsistency with prevailing conceptions of classical scholarship. As shown by his Latin programmatic writings, Cobet was a typical nineteenth-century humanist, who aimed to integrate contemporary scholarly values into a traditional educational framework. Both Cobet’s method of textual criticism and his determination to remain aloof from what are nowadays considered progressive developments in nineteenth-century classical scholarship make sense on the basis of his humanistic conviction that classical scholarship’s ultimate aim is to serve humane educational ends. The fact that Cobet’s humanistic educational writings have fallen into oblivion is the result of a tendency among modern classicists to measure the past by standards drawn from the present, a tendency that can be called the ‘Whig history of classical scholarship’.

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Scholars have long been familiar with the concept of the seventeenth century as a turning point in the history of science. It is only in recent decades that they have started to think of the nineteenth century in similar terms.