The French Prime Minister, Élisabeth Borne, had lunch in Brussels on Thursday 16 February with the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, to whom she reminded the French priorities in the energy field as the EU institution fine-tunes its legislative review of price formation on the European electricity market, expected in mid-March.
“While we have responded to the emergency and gas prices have fallen, it is still essential to reform the European electricity market to ensure that tomorrow the volatility of these prices is more under control”, Ms Borne said ahead of her meeting with Ms von der Leyen. “France fully supports this initiative with a very simple objective: to ensure that prices correspond to the reality of production costs”, she added.
In short: the price of electricity should no longer be dependent on the price of gas.
Together with other Member States, France is also promoting the development of low-carbon hydrogen which could be derived from nuclear energy (see EUROPE 13112/8).
“We need to be able to promote low-carbon hydrogen. There are several ways: hydrogen produced from renewables and also from nuclear power. It is also a way to promote decarbonisation”, a diplomatic source had indicated the day before.
The discussions on low-carbon hydrogen are taking place in the context of the revision of the Renewable Energy Directive, which is at the interinstitutional negotiations stage between the European Parliament and the EU Council, and the Gas Package, on which the EU Council has yet to agree its negotiating position with Parliament (see EUROPE 13090/4).
For her part, Ms von der Leyen welcomed France’s “leading role” in discussions on a ‘Green Deal Industrial Plan’ in response to the US IRA. (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion)