France and Germany will ‘realign’ energy policies, Macron and Merz say

PARIS – French President Emmanuel Macron and new German Chancellor Friedrich Merz promised to “realign” their countries’ energy policies to cut energy costs and ensure security of supply on Wednesday.

Realigning German and French energy policy will be based on “climate neutrality, competitiveness and sovereignty”, Merz and Macron wrote in a joint op-ed in France’s Le Figaro newspaper.

Both endorsed the principle of technological neutrality, and while the article doesn’t explicitly mention nuclear energy, it does link technological neutrality with “ensuring non-discriminatory treatment of all low-carbon energies within the European Union.”

Nuclear energy is low-carbon, but is not renewable.

For years, pro-nuclear France and anti-nuclear Germany have clashed on key EU energy policy decisions and legislative negotiations in Brussels.

“To ensure our energy sovereignty while respecting national choices, we are calling for an end to all discrimination at European level against low-carbon energies, whether nuclear or renewable,” Macron said on Wednesday during a joint press conference with Merz, who was visiting Paris just a day after being elected chancellor.

“We want an overall vision of the energy markets and investment at European level in our cross-border networks and infrastructures,” Macron added.

Merz travelled to Paris on his first day in office to re-launch the Franco-German alliance and outline the two countries joint priorities. He also is scheduled to travel to Warsaw later in the day.

In their joint article, Macron and Merz wrote that technological neutrality also means taking a “pragmatic approach” on low-carbon hydrogen, which can be made using both nuclear power as well as fossil fuels matched with carbon capture and storage technologies.

They also said that natural gas “can be a transitional energy source for EU member states needing it” – a point in support of Merz’s plan to support the construction of up to 20 gigawatts of new gas-fired power plant capacity.

Jasper Steinlein and Nick Alipour contributed reporting from Berlin.

(bts)