EDF responded to Bruno Le Maire's call.
The group is committed to “renegotiating the contracts” which were signed with small and medium-sized and mid-sized companies, “at a time when prices were at their highest” during the energy crisis, the Minister of Energy announced on Monday. Economy and Finance.
“EDF is committed to renegotiating the contracts of VSEs, SMEs, and ETIs which were signed when prices were at their highest.
This is vital for these companies.
EDF is implementing it,” indicated Bruno Le Maire following his participation in the EDF executive committee, a first for a minister since the complete nationalization of the group in June 2023.
Friday, before the federation of bakery companies, the minister assured that he would “place an order” with CEO Luc Rémont “to respond company by company to this need to renegotiate contracts”.
Several professional organizations denounce the pricing conditions of companies which remain linked to two or three-year electricity supply contracts signed in 2022, at the height of the surge in energy prices, while prices have since fallen significantly .
The Confederation of French Traders (CDF) had earlier Monday asked the minister to bring together electricity suppliers to renegotiate their prices, deemed “unfairly high”.
The Confederation, which brings together around twenty organizations of independent traders (florists, clothing, markets, booksellers, tobacconists, fairgrounds, etc.), denounced in a press release electricity prices "totally disproportionate compared to real market rates".
This request follows that of hoteliers and restaurateurs.
The Group of Hotels and Restaurants of France (GHR) and the Union of Hotel Trades and Industries (UMIH) called on Bruno Le Maire on February 12, to renegotiate the prices of their electricity contracts deemed “ Aboveground ".
Relaunch of nuclear power
According to the CDF, which says it represents more than 450,000 companies and a million employees, electricity suppliers “obstinately refuse to adjust their prices despite the drop in the cost of energy”.
Small businesses in city centers would be “forced to bear energy prices of up to 350 euros per MWh while the current market rate is less than 90 euros per MWh,” assures the organization.
The latter recalls the “record profits” of electricians in 2023: EDF ended the year with a net profit of 10 billion euros.
According to a survey carried out at the end of January by the GHR and the UMIH, “more than half of professionals (59%) remain bound by energy supply contracts at extremely high prices, i.e. above 180 euros per MWh while the price of the MWh has decreased since the end of 2022 and is less than half of this price.
“10 to 15% of professionals would even be bound by contracts with prices exceeding 350 euros per MWh”, according to the two unions.
Electricity prices increased for a majority of French people on February 1, with the end of the “price shield”.
For small businesses, the increase was 5.2 to 8% depending on the contracts.
Furthermore, the Minister of the Economy called on the EDF group to mobilize “all the necessary human and technical resources” to carry out the new nuclear reactor program “within the set costs and deadlines”.
“We have embarked on the largest industrial project in Europe for several decades with the construction of six new nuclear reactors.
We want this new major project to be a success,” the minister underlined in particular to the group’s senior managers, according to comments sent by his office.
He recalled the priorities entrusted to the group: extending the lifespan of its aging power plants and increasing electricity production while carrying out the nuclear recovery program desired by the government with the construction of six new EPR2 type reactors, followed by eight others.