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After months of negotiations between Paris and Brussels, the two parties failed to agree on the EDF reform project. For lack of consensus, the validation of the project is postponed but far from being abandoned.
The intense showdown between the government and the European Commission (implicating the EDF unions, most of them opposed to the project) will therefore have given nothing. Discussions will remain at a standstill for several more months, probably until the end of Emmanuel Macron’s five-year term, whose agenda (and that of parliamentarians) will be busy by then.
The next president will have a lot to do to convince both Brussels and the agents of the electricity supplier who denounce a outright dismantling of the group. Indeed, a source within the government confided to the Echos qu’“It is not possible to submit a bill to Parliament whose main terms have not been the subject of a global agreement with the European Commission”.
Brussels wants, through the voice of the European Commissioner for Competition, Margrethe Vestager, a « functional separation » of the three entities of the group while the French energy company would have an interest in reorganizing itself while allowing one entity to benefit from the finances of the other two.
EDF reform: time is running out for the group
As a reminder, this reform, a time called the “Hercules” project provides for an EDF group reorganized into three entities:
- “EDF Bleu”, in charge of power plants and other nuclear activities;
- “EDF Vert”, for the distribution and marketing of green energies;
- “EDF Azur”, dealing with hydroelectric dams.
The objective of this reform is threefold:
- reform the regulated selling price of nuclear power (ARENH) so that the group has the financial capacity to maintain and develop its nuclear fleet;
- develop renewable energies in the light of this restructuring;
- bring back the hydroelectric dams that EDF owns in the spotlight so as not to be overtaken by its competitors.
See you in a few months, since the same source indicates that “The French State and the Commission will continue discussions on the future of EDF’s hydroelectric park and on the regulation of existing nuclear power in order to reach an agreement as soon as possible”.
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