Emmanuel Macron meets Friday morning from 10 a.m. a Defense Council to take stock of the supply of gas and electricity.
Emmanuel Macron is meeting a Defense Council on Friday morning to take stock of the supply of gas and electricity and to examine the scenarios in order to avoid the shortage and make savings. Scheduled for 10 a.m. at the Elysée, this council brings together “the competent ministers” on this file such as Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne, Minister of the Economy Bruno Le Maire, Minister of Public Accounts Gabriel Attal and the ministers responsible for the Transition. energy Christophe Béchu and Agnès Pannier-Runacher, as well as experts.
This CDSN “aims to take stock of the situation of our gas and electricity supply to prepare for all scenarios this fall and winter”, explained the presidency. It will also look at “European energy solidarity”.
Gas flows from Russia have dried up and the Europeans are preparing for a possible total shutdown, in retaliation for the sanctions imposed on Moscow since the invasion of Ukraine on February 24. The giant Gazprom thus announced this week the end of its deliveries to Engie.
The situation is also tense on the electricity side, due to the unavailability of part of the nuclear fleet, in particular for corrosion problems. Elisabeth Borne thus put pressure on EDF by asking it Thursday to keep its reactor maintenance schedule to avoid France having to restart a coal-fired power plant.
Read also: Elisabeth Borne affirms it: “we are not going to cut the gas in French households”
“We’ve been preparing for months to avoid cuts. If we lower our gas consumption by 10% there will be no restrictions. It’s achievable,” added the Prime Minister on France Inter. “If we don’t make these savings, if the winter is cold, there may be restrictions but they will not concern households”, she added, specifying that she would present “at the end of September-beginning of October “the scenarios envisaged.
For her part, Emmanuelle Wargon, the president of the Energy Regulatory Commission, declared Thursday “confident” on the “possibility of spending the winter without Russian gas”, which only represents 9% of the supply in France.
She specified on LCI that “the 100% filling of our gas stocks” will be effective “before November 1, date fixed by the government”.
Initially reserved for defense and security issues, defense councils have been used on numerous occasions by Emmanuel Macron to manage the Covid-19 crisis, provoking criticism from political opposition on the solitary exercise of power.
“An energy defense council, for me that’s the secret,” criticized Greens boss Julien Bayou on Tuesday. “Don’t see it as a secret enclosure, it’s really a collegial, collective work,” assured government spokesman Olivier Véran.