The shock that threatens to send Europe into a tailspin started in Paris. Economy Minister Bruno Le Maire announced on Thursday evening that the rise in electricity sales rates from February it will be only 4%, against the 44% that would be necessary without state intervention. The provision, three months after the presidential vote, it will fall above all on the shoulders of Edf, the colossus that manages nuclear energy which will thus bear a loss of between 7 and 8 billion in lost earnings, obliged by law to sell part of its production to smaller competitors at controlled prices. Immediate impact on quotations on the stock exchange plummeted by about 25% right from the start.
The bloodletting of Edf, which controls Edison in Italy, had an immediate effect on the listing of Enel down by 2%, a drop greater than that of the other utilities which contained losses below the percentage point. But, as he writes Equity, given the lack of visibility of the EU's choices, lThe decision of the French government increases the uncertainty on the scenario at European level, already unsure of his own. The increase in energy, in fact, is the result of several factors among which the contrasted one stands out relationship with Moscow, determined to make the gas card weigh in the match against Ukraine. For months Poland and the European Parliament have been asking the Commission to investigate what Gazprom is doing in the gas market. The Russian giant respects the contracts, but refuses requests for additional supplies and is letting its storage facilities in Europe empty. AND Commissioner Margrethe Vestager on Thursday he issued the first real warning to Gazprom. “It suggests that a company faced with growing demand limits supplies. This is quite rare behavior in the market".
It is in this framework that we play the game of Italian prices, under the sword of Damocles of the impact of high energy prices threatening the recovery of industry as well as household budgets. Also on Thursday, a meeting was held at Palazzo Chigi to discuss the issue of expensive energy. The representatives of the ministries and the Arera Authority were present. Also in Italy the theme of the day are the interventions to be taken to at least partially sterilize the impact of expensive energy, contingent measures, because it is hoped that the expensive gas bubble deflate in the spring, but which will finally be framed in choices consistent with a broader policy. The Minister of Economic Development, Giancarlo Giorgetti, answering a question on the hypothesis of a taxation also in Italy of extra-marginality of energy companies, he explained that "a shared opinion within the government is that extra profits... must in some way contribute to general taxation to allow action to be taken towards the most disadvantaged categories". An indirect reply to the dell administrator'Enel Francesco Starace who in an interview with Repubblica denied the very existence of extra profits.
Meanwhile, the lines of the document that the minister of ecological transition are filtering Roberto Cingolani has prepared for Prime Minister Mario Draghi. The work shows that gas remains a necessary source of transition for our country, regardless of the European taxonomy still under discussion in which the theme of gas and nuclear energy dear to Paris intersect, with great confusion.
On the internal front, Cingolani's team proposes to accelerate the production of gas already available in the peninsula today, without new drilling: it is possible, according to the technicians, double from 4 to 8 million cubic meters the exploitation of the deposits within 24 months. In this way imports could be reduced and a series of tax reliefs for domestic gas could be introduced for the benefit of households and businesses (avoiding the EDF effect thanks to discounts for producers). All to be coordinated with the comparison within the EU, starting from the criterion of the price of gas which today acts as a benchmark for fixing the value of the various forms of energy.
In short, the choices are not lacking, even if the passage is narrow: according to Standard & Poor's the increase could cost companies between 30 and 35 billion euros. And even for Piazza Affari the bloodletting will not be indifferent, even if Starace has ready a substantial palliative for the shareholders: the listing on the Stock Exchange as early as 2022 of both Gridspertise, the group company dedicated to the digital transformation of electricity grids, and of the new company which deals with the recharging of electric cars born from the split of Enel X.
