The environmental candidate for the presidential election, Yannick Jadot, said he wanted to “renationalize” EDF by changing its status on Sunday January 16. “Electricity is a common good. EDF must be renationalised as an EPIC public establishment” – public industrial and commercial establishment – tweeted Yannick Jadot. “What I want is for EDF to become a powerful, coherent strategic tool at the service of the energy transition”, explained the MEP to the Grand Jury RTL-Le Figaro-LCI.
Electricity is a common good. EDF must be renationalised as an EPIC public institution. #TheGrandJury #Jadot2022
—Yannick Jadot (@yjadot) January 16, 2022
“When the State closes a nuclear power plant, we pay astronomical compensation to EDF and the shareholders. Today, you have an EDF operator who, through government decisions, is in the process of committing hara-kiri so that Total and Engie make record profits and pay astronomical dividends to their shareholders”, he denounced. According to him, going from almost 84% to 100% of EDF’s capital for the State costs “around 5 to 6 billion euros, it’s much cheaper”.
EDF accumulates the setbacks while the government asked him to increase by 20% the volume of nuclear electricity sold at a reduced price to its competitors this year, in order to limit the increase in electricity prices for consumers.
Moreover, the environmentalist candidate is asking for a parliamentary commission of inquiry after the “absolute fiasco” of the Flamanville EPR (Manche). “No one, not a minister, not an EDF official is before a commission of inquiry to justify 17 billion euros” overrun, according to him (20 billion according to the Court of Auditors, against 3.3 billion initially planned). “Do you realize that 17 billion is almost the budget for higher education? And you have people who brew the billions of euros of public money without ever being accountable”, he lamented.
EDF announced on Wednesday that the start-up of the new generation EPR nuclear reactor under construction in Flamanville was postponed to 2023, in particular due to the Covid-19 pandemic, with a new additional cost of 300 million euros. Under construction since 2007, the EPR was initially to be commissioned in 2012, but the construction site was affected by numerous setbacks and additional costs. In addition, EDF also had to extend the shutdown of some of its nuclear reactors, in several French power plants, where corrosion problems were identified. In some cases, the shutdown will last until the end of the year.