Edito

Last Thursday, during the European Council, the 27 Member States agreed to give Prime Minister Theresa May the opportunity to postpone the Brexit date only until the 12th of April in order to give the British Parliament enough time to vote, for the third time, the withdrawal agreement. If the deal is approved, the EU will extend the Brexit deadline until 22 May. Yet, the odds for a no-deal scenario remains. In the light of the political uncertainty, France and the EU have prepared for such a scenario in the last few months to reduce as much as possible the incidence of what could be a chaotic exit for European firms as well as citizens.

On March 5th, the French President called, in an open letter, for the creation of a European Climate Bank after concluding that both the fight to tackle climate change and the energy transition were severely lacking funding. Therefore, Emmanuel Macron directly asked for the establishment of unprecedented financial instruments in order to live up to the environmental and climate challenges of our time. Acknowledging the dead end our continent is currently trapped in, he pointed out the necessity for France to significantly reduce its greenhouse emissions especially for the building and the mobility sectors. For them to be the most impactful, these funds will also have to be directed towards the most climate efficient actions ! In the same vein, various public figures recently mentioned the idea to set up a Marshall Plan for Climate as well as a European Climate Pact.

Last January 10th, RTE, the French TSO, called on flexibility of industrial customers, through the interruptible load programme, in order to maintain the network frequency at 50Hz, a value on which all the electrical appliances are calibrated. However, there was no “black-out risk” on that day – a fear often transmitted but usually exaggerated… Let us try to have a clearer understanding !

The French Government has just entrusted, in the Multiannual Energy framework 2023-2028, the new French Skills Agency with the task of opening a specific project on the ecological transition. This project will involve several stakeholders : the Ministry of the Environment, the Ministry for the Economy and Finance as well as the Ministry of Labour, representatives of the National Industry Council (CNI), and social partners. The prospective impetus given will focus on jobs, skills and therefore training, which are major challenges for the "Nuclear" and "New Energy Systems Industries" sectors. With its partners in the electricity sector, UFE is invested in the Outlook Employment Contract, under the aegis of the Ministry of Labour and the Ministry for the Ecological and Inclusive Transition, which should be officially signed during this 1st quarter of 2019....

In accordance with the ESSOC bill, the French government presented to the Higher Energy Council (CSE) on January 22nd one ruling act and two decrees to simplify and accelerate the entry into force of the Regional Plans for Connecting Renewable Energy to the Network (S3REnR). UFE has held several consultations on this much-awaited topic, making it possible to find consensual positions and express proposals for improvement on the three texts, all of which were widely adopted by the CSE.

Energy is at the core of the latest news : Emmanuel Macron presented the French Multiannual Energy Framework (PPE) and the National Low Carbon Strategy (SNBC), the European Commission unveiled its long-term climate strategy "A Clean Planet for All" ahead of COP24, and protest movements emerge against the increase in ecological taxation and electricity prices. UFE’s annual conference was particularly timely to illustrate how cooperation and partnerships should help solving the equation between climate, security of supply, purchasing power and employment.
Let us look back at the highlights of this special day.

Last summer, the French government launched a call for tenders for 200 MW of wind or solar generation capacities in France. For the first time in France, projects on two different technologies were in competition in the same call for tenders. The results showed that such “experiment” should not be generalized.

Last February, in his speech on the State of the Energy Union, European Commission Vice-President Maroš Šefčovič set the tone : 2018 would be the “year of engagement”, an intense legislative year where the European Union would adopt instruments and policies to make the Energy Union a reality in 2019. Now that the second semester has just begun, many files remain open : final negotiations on the Clean Energy Package, new ambitions for the reductions of emissions in the transport sector, long-term vision for the decarbonisation of the European economy ; the coming months will be decisive for the future of the European climate and energy policy. They also announce the beginning of an uncertain period for Europe with the launch of the campaign for the European elections, scheduled in May 2019, the exit of United Kingdom from the EU and the end of the Juncker Commission. Here is an update on the upcoming big deadlines…

Though the review of the French Low-Carbon Strategy (SNCB) is still ongoing, a first observation can already be made : in a carbon-neutral economy, electricity will play an important part among the range of solutions.

Today, greenhouse gas emissions from the transport sector account for almost a quarter of European emissions. At the local level, air pollution, a problem that European cities are increasingly tackling, is responsible for 400,000 premature deaths per year[1]. Some other health consequences due to the transport sector, such as noise, are also often neglected[2]. Now more than ever, Europe must resolve this triple equation in order to reconcile mobility and environment when revising the Transport Regulations and Directives. At the same time, in France, the Mobility Forum (“Assises de la Mobilité”) has given way to the preparation of the Framework Bill on Mobility. As national and European issues are similar, solutions must complement each other. That is why national and European legislative work must therefore be carried out simultaneously in a spirit of integration.