The energy unions and the salaried directors ofEDF seized the Council of State to challenge the decree issued by the government which obliges the group to increase the volumes of electricitysold at low prices to other electricity suppliers, they announced on Monday.
Contain price increases
“On Friday April 1, 2022, the Council of State was seized of an action for annulment and a request for interim suspension once morest the regulatory texts of March 11, 2022 organizing the spoliation of EDF” through the “raising of the ceiling of the Arenh”, indicated in a press release the four trade union federations representing the electricity and gas industries (CGT, CFE-CGC, FO, CFDT).
The appeals are carried out by these four trade union federations as well as by the six salaried directors of EDF, they specified. In order to contain, as it had promised, the rise in regulated electricity tariffs to 4% in 2022, the government has asked EDF to increase by 20% the annual quota of electricity sold at a reduced price to its competitors, at 120 TWh ( once morest 100 TWh previously).
“Arenh” device
This system called Arenh (Regulated access to historical nuclear electricity) was set up by the European Commission to force the introduction of competition once morest the national and incumbent operator EDF, which must thus sell part of its electricity to its competitors at a discounted price (46.2 euros per MWh) while prices on the wholesale markets exceed 200 euros per MWh.
Seized by the European Commission
In addition to the cancellation of these texts, published on March 12 in the Official Journal, they initiated summary proceedings, therefore urgently, in order to “request their suspension and consequently the stopping of the additional delivery ofArenh” and to “request that the beneficiaries of additional Arenh already delivered reimburse the corresponding aid or pay it into a blocked account”. The date of examination of this request is not yet known at this stage.
The trade union federations recall having also seized the European Commission to challenge the increase in the Arenh ceiling as being contrary to European law. EDF estimates the negative impact of raising the Arenh to 10.2 billion euros on its gross operating surplus (Ebitda) this year. Confronted in parallel with other production problems in its power plants, the group expects a plunge in its results in 2022. This forced the State to get its hands on the portfolio by subscribing on March 18 to a capital increase of 2.6 billion euros.
