At the end of the informal meeting of European leaders in Granada on Friday 6 October, which focused on the EU’s strategic autonomy, French President Emmanuel Macron returned to the negotiations under way in the Council of the European Union on the reform of the electricity market.
He pointed out that Europe still had dependencies and more expensive energy than other regions of the world. “The strategy is to try to produce the cheapest, most carbon-free energy and to allow the free movement of electrons to use this electricity to produce or consume”, he said.
Regarding the tensions with other Member States over the possibility of subsidies for existing nuclear power plants and the fear of a “subsidy race” (see EUROPE 13262/5), Mr Macron was keen to stress that both nuclear and renewable energies “are electrons produced on European soil that are decarbonised”.
Finally, he expressed his desire for the EU-27 to reach an agreement by the end of the year. “We must not waste time on demands, details or divisions, because our battle is geopolitical”.
A few hours later, still at the end of the informal meeting, the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, also insisted on the need to reach an agreement on the reform of the electricity market (see other news). (Original version in French by Pauline Denys)