BERLIN (Reuters) – The rift between Berlin and Helsinki over bailing out Uniper grew on Saturday after the gas giant’s Finnish majority shareholder, Fortum, rejected a call by Germany’s economy minister for more aid. to bail out the troubled group.
Uniper made a bailout request to the German government on Friday, with its chief executive warning that losses from falling supplies from Russia and soaring gas prices could reach 10 billion euros this year.
German Economy Minister Robert Habeck said state-owned Fortum should help rescue as Germany faces a severe energy crisis.
Uniper “belongs to someone, someone who is solvent and who can provide support,” Robert Habeck, also energy minister, told Deutschlandfunk radio. “It is therefore fair to consider models where the owners also assume an obligation”.
Fortum, who proposed to place Uniper’s German activities under the protection of Berlin, replied that he had already granted his subsidiary 8 billion euros in loans and guarantees.
“The German companies responsible for security of supply must be owned by the federal state, which has the strong solvency required”, because gas prices could continue to rise, said Markus Rauram, managing director of Fortum, in an email.
Finland’s European Affairs Minister, Tytti Tuppurainen, also stressed in an email that the rescue of Uniper was a matter of “European importance”.
“We urgently demand that Uniper’s risky and essential activities be (…) secured by the German state,” she added.
While Russia blames the reduction of its gas exports on technical problems, the governments of Western countries claim that Moscow invokes false pretexts to avenge the sanctions imposed in response to the war in Ukraine.
Germany, very dependent on Russian gas, activated level 2 of its emergency gas supply plan three weeks ago, which allows it to allocate 15 billion euros of public money to buy gas elsewhere, in order to fill its tanks for this winter.
Robert Habeck warned that if gas prices continue to rise, however, this amount may not be enough.
(Reporting Markus Wacket and Matthias Inverardi, writing by Thomas Escritt; Laetitia Volga, told by)