2023-10-23 04:30:02
Dor months, unprecedented tensions have opposed France and Germany over the reform of the European electricity market. And, for ten years, the two countries have been throwing the virtues of their respective models in each other’s faces: a strong nuclear matrix for Paris, a mix of fossil and renewable energies for Berlin.
The issue had even become the main stumbling block in Franco-German relations. A situation that is all the less justified that the two nations are supposed to jointly pursue a triple objective: avoiding soaring prices, strengthening industrial competitiveness and decarbonizing their economy.
At the Hamburg summit on October 9 and 10, Emmanuel Macron and Olaf Scholz reopened the issue without concluding, the French president and the German chancellor nevertheless showing optimism for the future. Continuation and end, Tuesday October 17, in Luxembourg, where the energy ministers of the Twenty-Seven finally reached a compromise on the reform of the electricity market, now submitted to MEPs. The Elysée, which fought for the inclusion of nuclear power in the new price mechanism, declared victory. Just like Germany, since Brussels will ensure that support for EDF and the modernization of its 56 reactors does not give France a competitive advantage contrary to European competition laws.
A historic conflict
This is what Germany in recession feared, whose industry is shaken by the loss of cheap Russian gas, competition from American companies subsidized by the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) to green their activities and the threat of Chinese electric vehicle manufacturers. The immediate issue therefore concerned the configuration of the market and not the price applied to the consumer of electricity, whether fossil, nuclear or renewable, assured the negotiators. Does the Luxembourg agreement put an end to the old Franco-German conflict over the energy model?
The transition launched by Berlin in 2001 has not kept all of its promises of decarbonizing electricity, even if wind, solar and hydrogen have experienced remarkable development. If France is far from being “eco-exemplary” in its overall greenhouse gas emissions, its electricity production is seven times less “polluting” than that of its neighbor, forced to restart coal to compensate for the shutdown definitive of nuclear power. An essential asset in view of a 50% increase in electron consumption by 2050.
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