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Logos of Stromnetz Berlin and Vattenfall: A way out of the messed up situation?
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Christoph Soeder / dpa
In the mid-1990s, the Berlin electricity grid was privatized, and the Senate has been trying to reverse this for years.
Now the energy company Vattenfall has made an offer to the city-state after years of litigation.
Vattenfall wants to end the dispute over Berlin's power supply and now wants to sell the power grid.
Vattenfall announced that the group had offered the state all shares in its own subsidiary Stromnetz Berlin GmbH, including infrastructure, IT systems and personnel.
"We have come to the conclusion that we have to find a way out of the messy situation," said the outgoing Vattenfall boss Magnus Hall of the dpa news agency.
"It is not a good thing to continue dragging this uncertainty around with us in all of our business activities, upcoming decisions and investments."
Hall initially gave no information about the conditions and the envisaged price.
Vattenfall fears years of litigation
Should the Senate strike, the energy company believes that the purchase could be completed as early as the first half of 2021.
The Berlin Senate has been working for years to reverse privatizations of the past decades.
The water company was bought back and apartments are also being acquired.
In the case of the electricity grid, there was a request for remunicipalisation in 2012, but the referendum failed.
In 2019, the Landesbetrieb Berlin Energie was finally awarded the contract for a readmission following a tender by the Senate.
He was able to prevail against Vattenfall and the Bürger Energie cooperative.
The Vattenfall subsidiary Stromnetz Berlin had taken the decision to court.
Now Vattenfall-Hall announced: "The prospect of more years of legal disputes is not only a burden for the company, but also makes decisions about the billions in investments more difficult."
However, according to Hall, the sales offer is not "a signal that we are rethinking our business in Germany".
The Federal Republic remains the most important market for Vattenfall - "and we will continue to invest there and expand our commitment".
Icon: The mirror
apr / dpa
