The French government on Wednesday announced that the French state-owned multinational electricity company Electricite de France SA (EDF) is helping EDF better deal with the worsening energy crisis currently plaguing France and greater Europe. announced plans for expropriation.
This was stated by French Prime Minister Elisabeth Born in a political speech at the French Parliament in Paris on 6 July.
“Bourne did not provide specific details about the government’s plans, except that the state has now increased its stake in EDF from 84% to 100%,” Bloomberg said.
“At this stage, no decision has yet been made on modes of operation,” a spokesman for the French finance ministry told reporters regarding the nationalization of Europe’s largest nuclear power producer, EDF.
Bloomberg described some of the events that led to the French federal government taking over EDF completely this week:
France will receive 16 percent of the shares [in EDF] not yet owned by the company and not expropriated. This indicates that state intervention may become increasingly evident in other EU countries. [European Union]to ensure market continuity due to the aggravation of the energy crisis, to reduce cost inflation and to implement the energy security plans of the region.
In recent years, EDF has struggled with several issues related to an aging reactor fleet and spillovers in the cost of building new ones. Its problems are exacerbated by government-mandated electricity price ceilings and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, making it more expensive for the company to bridge the gap in its own electricity generation.
Russia and neighboring Ukraine have been at war since February 24 after Russia’s illegal occupation of the Ukrainian Crimean peninsula for eight years. Moscow’s decision to launch its latest invasion of the country prompted Washington-led Western governments to impose extensive financial sanctions on Russian companies and institutions to punish the Kremlin for action. The ongoing sanctions campaign, combined with Europe’s general avoidance of Russian businesses, has contributed to the continent’s current energy crisis that began in late 2021.
The governments of France and Germany increasingly blame Russia for a lack of energy resources, arguing that Moscow’s recent decision to reduce gas flows to Europe via the Nord Stream pipeline is an act of revenge for their support of anti-Russian sanctions. offer.
Reuters detailed the situation on 17 June, writing:
The most immediate cause of the energy crisis is the shortage of natural gas, which accounted for 22 percent of EU electricity production in 2019. Prices are rising and scarcity fears are mounting.
Russia says supply cuts are a seasonal change to divert more natural gas to storage to prepare for higher domestic demand during the winter. However, the supply cuts also coincided with the completion of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline and attempts by Russia to scare the EU Commission into supporting the pipeline’s final approval.
French Prime Minister Born also said in his speech on 6 July: “The climate emergency requires decisive, radical solutions. We need to have full control over our production and future energy. We must assert our dominance in the face of the consequences of war and the enormous challenges that lie before us.”
Source: Breitbart
