(Updated with statements)
BERLIN, July 9 (Reuters) – The disagreement between Berlin and Helsinki over bailing out Uniper escalated on Saturday after Fortum, the gas giant’s Finnish majority shareholder, rejected an appeal by Germany’s economy minister additional help 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. “So it’s fair to consider models where owners also take on an obligation.”
Fortum, which has offered to place Uniper’s German operations under Berlin’s protection, replied that it had already granted its 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 increase, 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 in 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 gas supply emergency 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 sum may not be enough.
(Reporting Markus Wacket and Matthias Inverardi, written by Thomas Escritt; Laetitia Volga, edited by)