Economy Minister Bruno Le Maire asked energy suppliers on Friday for additional efforts to ensure “reasonable prices” for SMEs, accusing them of not “playing the game” enough, adding that he plans to bring them together next Wednesday at Bercy.
“I think that today (energy suppliers) do not play the game enough with their customers, especially SMEs,” he said on Europe 1, quoting directly TotalEnergies, Engie and EDF.
This is why “we will bring together, with Agnès Pannier-Runacher next Wednesday at 8:30 am, all energy companies to ask them to sign a code of conduct,” continued the Minister.
The companies will undertake to “provide all French SMEs with reasonable electricity and energy rates, within reasonable timeframes, with reasonable conditions” including “the possibility of revision” if prices fall, according to Mr. Le Maire.
He also emphasized “the opportunity for the company to review the contract without them having a knife to the throat.”
The European employers’ organization BusinessEurope warned on Thursday that high gas and electricity prices in Europe pose an “imminent risk” of “production losses” and “shutdowns of thousands of European companies”.
Some energy suppliers offer SMEs “prices of around 600 or 700 euros per megawatt hour, where energy suppliers anticipate a price of 200 to 300 euros,” said Le Maire. “This is not acceptable,” he blasted.
At the same time, European energy ministers are meeting on Friday to try to approve emergency measures to curb soaring gas and electricity prices and to deal with the risks of social crisis and business failures as winter approaches.
Meeting in Brussels, the ministers of the 27 should validate proposals presented in mid-September by the European Commission, aimed at recovering part of the “super profits” of energy producers to redistribute them to consumers, and reduce demand for electricity.
But a majority of member states – 15, including France, Belgium, Italy and Spain – believe that the “most serious problem” must be addressed: they are calling for a cap on wholesale gas prices on the European market.
