The European Commission did not wish to comment, at this stage, on the agreement reached by the French government and state-owned group EDF on Tuesday, 14 November. It is a ‘mechanism for capturing [economic] rent’, which consists of guaranteeing an average nuclear electricity price of €70/MWh for all production and redistributing, using a specific calculation method, the excess profits directly to consumers (households and businesses).
This mechanism thus moves away from using two-way contracts for difference (CfD), as negotiated by France for existing power plants in the context of the European reform of the electricity market—now under negotiation between the Council of the EU and the European Parliament (see EUROPE 13275/6).
“It’s for a Member State to assess if a specific measure involves State aid, and if it does, it will need to be notified to the Commission for its assessment before actually granting any aid to beneficiaries, unless the measure is made in [such] a way that it is covered by block exemptions”, explained a European Commission spokesperson. (Original version in French by Pauline Denys)