There are days like that. Symptomatic moments when an entire period is condensed into a few hours. Friday, November 25, Matignon, landing place for all subjects and, sometimes, all crises, experienced an accelerated season.
Breakfast of the Prime Minister in Paris with women committed against violence, departure at midday for Berlin to meet Chancellor Olaf Scholz and discuss the thorny issue of gas and electricity, evening at the Assembly national to face a motion of censure and announce a new 49.3… “We’re going to need energy today”, we slipped at the end of the morning, at Matignon. In barely twelve hours, Elisabeth Borne has juggled the hot issues that have punctuated all her weeks since taking office. Like a perfect summary of a stormy period.
3 p.m. in Berlin. The French Prime Minister is welcomed by the German Chancellor. In the courtyard, the large Christmas tree is extinguished. Sobriety requires, it will only be lit four hours a day, compared to twenty-four hours a day in 2021. An hour and a quarter later, after a face-to-face interview then in an enlarged format, the two heads of government sign in front of the cameras a “joint declaration of energy solidarity”.
Faced with the risk of shortages, the two countries “undertake to implement concrete measures of mutual support” : in other words, France will continue to supply gas, as it has been doing for weeks, to a Germany strongly affected by the stoppage of Russian imports, and Berlin will deliver electricity to Hegagone, obliged to import it for the first time in forty-two years because of the shutdown of many nuclear reactors. “Friends support each other in adversity”summarizes M. Scholz.
Avoid the black scenario of power cuts
Surrounded by her close guard on the plane, Elisabeth Borne had refined each word of the joint declaration. The result of long hours of negotiations between the two countries to formalize this system, which was not to be formalized until January 2023. The Germans wanted to ensure that this aid would not harm their ability to supply their southern regions, away from the northern wind farms.
“Germany and France needed this agreement and it is a fine example of solidarity in the face of the crisissays the Prime Minister. We have a duty to continue to show that Europe continues to protect its citizens and its businesses, as it has done during the Covid, even if, at this time, it may sometimes happen that we have divergent interests in due to very different energy mixes. »
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