The storage will be completely filled on November 1, the Minister for Energy Transition, Agnès Pannier-Runacher, said on Wednesday.
“We are now at 80% filling of our strategic gas stocks, we are ahead of our objectives, this means that we will fill 100% before November 1, which was our objective.“said Agnès Pannier-Runacher on CNews on Wednesday.
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She called “collectively“all the French, but above all”the biggest actors” at “reduce their gas and electricity consumption“, because “the two systems are linked“. “And it goes in the direction of the fight against global warming“, she argued, after a question about the risk of shortages next winter in France and Europe, a consequence of the invasion of Ukraine by Russia. “The major players, administrations, companies must reduce their consumption“, she insisted. “The 19 degree setpoint is not respected everywhere“, lamented the minister.
“I don’t think we have any interest in the EU being economically weak and not protecting its people for next winter”
Agnes Pannier-Runacher
The Minister recalled and explained the European solidarity mechanisms at work for sharing access to energy sources. “We are counting on solidarity, especially from Germany, to import electricity“, she said, in reference to production problems encountered by French nuclear power plants. “And we must support Germany for the gas that we import into our LNG terminals. We have four who are at work right now“, she recalled.
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She defended the European principle of importing Azerbaijani gas to compensate for the absence of Russian gas, despite the controversies over human rights in this country. “I don’t believe we have any interest in the EU being weak economically and not protecting its people for next winter“, she said. Agnès Pannier-Runacher also described as “irresponsible» the remarks of the National Rally candidate for the presidential election Marine Le Pen asking to put an end to the sanctions against Russia in order to once again be able to benefit from the gas coming from this country. “The political personality who prides himself on being the most patriotic is also the first to sell our republic for a dish of lentils“, launched the minister.