At the end of the 20th century, the European Union took the initiative to liberalise the energy market. In the Netherlands this led to the introduction of the Gas Act on 10 August 2000. Since July 2004, all consumers in the Netherlands have been free to choose their own gas supplier. This was followed in 2005 by the splitting of Gasunie into the network operator Gasunie and the trading company GasTerra. Since the split Gasunie has been the 100% state-run owner of the national gas transportation network. Gasunie's subsidiary Gas Transport Services (GTS) operates as an independent network operator. GasTerra buys natural gas from domestic and foreign producers and sells it to large industrial customers, energy suppliers and customers abroad. Some other EU member states have already separated their trade and transport arms and some countries are going through this process now.