The meeting is scheduled for Wednesday. The Minister of the Economy wants energy suppliers, such as Engie, EDF and TotalEnergies, to offer “reasonable prices” to small and medium-sized businesses.
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“I think today [les fournisseurs d’énergie] do not sufficiently play the game with their customers, especially SMEs.” The Minister of the Economy Bruno Le Maire asked energy suppliers, on Friday September 30, for additional efforts to guarantee “reasonable prices” to SMEs. That is why “we will meet, with Agnès Pannier-Runacher next Wednesday [le 5 octobre] at 8:30 a.m., all energy companies to ask them to sign a code of conduct”continued the minister on Europe 1, directly citing TotalEnergies, Engie and EDF.
Companies will commit to “provide all French SMEs with reasonable electricity and energy prices, within a reasonable time, with reasonable conditions” with notably “the possibility of revision” if prices drop, according to Bruno Le Maire. He also insisted on “the possibility for the company to examine the contract without them having the knife under the throat”.
The European employers’ organization BusinessEurope had warned on Thursday that the high prices of gas and electricity in Europe posed a “imminent danger” of “production losses” and “arrests 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”accused Bruno Le Maire. “It’s not acceptable”, he castigated.