Macron to Announce New Energy Price Aid for Companies on Friday
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(Bloomberg) -- President Emmanuel Macron said his government would unveil measures to shield more companies from rising electricity prices on Friday.
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“We will set up a mechanism to damp the rises,” Macron told French broadcaster France 2 in an interview late Wednesday. He said the state will “guarantee a reasonable price” for electricity consumed by “small and medium-sized companies and others that need a lot of electricity.”
Other companies and some farmers, he said, will benefit from simpler mechanisms and other types of aid.
The French government was among the first in Europe to implement measures shielding consumers from a surge in power prices, spending billions of euros to limit price increases for households and small companies. Yet as public expenses pile up, the government plans to make the program less generous by letting prices increase by up to 15%.
European benchmark gas futures have dropped about 70% from the highs of August with cargoes of liquefied natural gas arriving and almost full storage sites, but prices remain three times higher than the average of the last five years.
On Wednesday, Macron welcomed his German counterpart Olaf Scholz for a working lunch in Paris where the two were meant to discuss energy issues. But an official in Macron’s office said the discussions focused on longer-term ambitions rather than concrete measures to tame prices.
Macron and Scholz also discussed a “Buy European Act” for electric vehicles in which EU state aid would only go to European-made vehicles, mirroring the US Inflation Reduction Act, which provides subsidies for electric cars made in North America.
Macron Accuses US of Trade ‘Double Standard’ Amid Energy Crunch
The two had a “real convergence” on the topic, Macron said. “France and Germany must stick together because we’ve been too open, because many of our carmakers were selling a lot in China and they didn’t want to close things.”
(Adds comments on ‘Buy European Act’ in last two paragraphs.)
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