Comment by MaxL93 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by MaxL93 | Hacker News Reader

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It should be noted that most of EDF's massive losses are due to the ARENH.

The European Union insists that EDF must sell energy at very discounted prices, so that third-party "providers" can make an entry on the energy market. The idea was that they would eventually sell their own energy supply, but most just pocketed the difference between the dirt-cheap energy & what they charged customers, then ran away the moment there was any hint of change on the horizon.

Or, to put it in simpler, blunter terms: in the name of "competition", EDF was forced to heavily subsidize companies that turned out to be nothing more than rent-seekers that only sought to, effectively, grab free subsidy money.

Here are some articles about it:

2022: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/aug/10/edf-sues-fr... 2023: https://www.ft.com/content/e2fc3abf-4803-4561-8ef2-0c77fd2d0... 2024: https://www.bruegel.org/policy-brief/europes-under-radar-ind...

So that's an European thing? huh. We have this in Romania - a couple years back when the war in Ukraine started just as the green deal took effect, the gov started spending like crazy on subsidizing energy. But they did it in a convoluted way with a layer of intermediaries that basically were allowed to invoice the state for price differences from arbitrary price levels. Almost "I'd like to sell at twice the price but you're not letting me, so gimme the difference" - if not exactly that.

I'm not sure if I'm feeling better or worse that it's a EU invention. Either way, it's hellof a corrupt practice.

No it's a neoliberal thing. Rather than the government doing the thing. They hand out massive subsides and hope it gets done.

I skimmed your posts but they don't blame EU rules. Can you point to EU regulation which caused this?

ARENH looks like a mechanism by which France wanted to entice competition in end customer sales (and distribution?) of electricity.

The ARENH program originated with EU liberalization efforts.

https://fsr.eui.eu/regulated-access-to-incumbent-nuclear-ele...

I read your link and I don't see why you say originated. This is a French law. My understanding is that EDF wanted to take a stake in a German energy producer and to approve such a takeover the EU as the market authority required some type of market liberalization of the French energy market.

France chose to use the mechanism of ARENH. This isn't an EU thing.

It's a French law to comply with EU requirements.

That's usually how that works. The EU makes rules and national parliaments create local laws to comply.

Of course they could have chosen another way to comply, for example breaking up EDF. But they didn't want to do that, probably for good reasons.

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