David Cameron (and Václav Klaus) apoplectic...
...after European Commission chews up and spits out the British nuclear subsidy scheme.
British prime minister David Cameron talking to workers at EDF's Hinkley Point nuclear power station: "Papier Mâché is French for damp, chewed-up paper, which quite frankly is my opinion of the European Commission's arguments!"
The European Commission published yesterday its response to the UK government’s proposed subsidy scheme to persuade the French and the Chinese to invest in a new nuclear power plant at Hinkley Point on the southwest coast of England. The same scheme is being considered by the Czech government to fund the construction and operation of two more blocs at Temelín.
The scheme, known as Contracts for Difference (CfD), is a mechanism similar to a feed-in tariff allowing for payments to generators to guarantee them a fixed level of revenues, or what the Commission describes, in language that would make Sir Humphrey blush it is so frank, as a no-brainer - at least for the French and Chinese investors:
"The CfD scheme seems to provide the utmost certainty of a stable revenue stream, under rather lenient conditions – i.e. that the beneficiary of the subsidy carries out its normal activities as a producer of electricity and sells this electricity into the market. In other words, the CfD is conceived to eliminate entirely market risks from the commercial activity of electricity generation, for the initial 35 years of operations of the new plant.”
The local lads of Fishguard repel French invaders in 1797.
The Commission dismisses every single argument put forward by the UK government to justify the scheme, in a written masterpiece of impeccably controlled intellectual scorn. I would not normally recommend anyone to read a European Commission document, but this one is diamond-sharp.
The Commission’s outright dismissal of the scheme sends the UK government back to the drawing board after a full six years of trying. And it puts the last nail in the coffin of Czech government hopes to double the size of Temelín using taxpayers’ money.
My colleague Jan Ondřich will be producing a crisp summary of the Commission’s arguments in Czech, which I shall be sure to share with you shortly. In the meantime, here is the document in (very fine) English. Enjoy!
http://ec.europa.eu/competition/state_aid/cases/251157/251157_1507977_35_2.pdf
British prime minister David Cameron talking to workers at EDF's Hinkley Point nuclear power station: "Papier Mâché is French for damp, chewed-up paper, which quite frankly is my opinion of the European Commission's arguments!"
The European Commission published yesterday its response to the UK government’s proposed subsidy scheme to persuade the French and the Chinese to invest in a new nuclear power plant at Hinkley Point on the southwest coast of England. The same scheme is being considered by the Czech government to fund the construction and operation of two more blocs at Temelín.
The scheme, known as Contracts for Difference (CfD), is a mechanism similar to a feed-in tariff allowing for payments to generators to guarantee them a fixed level of revenues, or what the Commission describes, in language that would make Sir Humphrey blush it is so frank, as a no-brainer - at least for the French and Chinese investors:
"The CfD scheme seems to provide the utmost certainty of a stable revenue stream, under rather lenient conditions – i.e. that the beneficiary of the subsidy carries out its normal activities as a producer of electricity and sells this electricity into the market. In other words, the CfD is conceived to eliminate entirely market risks from the commercial activity of electricity generation, for the initial 35 years of operations of the new plant.”
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The local lads of Fishguard repel French invaders in 1797.
The Commission dismisses every single argument put forward by the UK government to justify the scheme, in a written masterpiece of impeccably controlled intellectual scorn. I would not normally recommend anyone to read a European Commission document, but this one is diamond-sharp.
The Commission’s outright dismissal of the scheme sends the UK government back to the drawing board after a full six years of trying. And it puts the last nail in the coffin of Czech government hopes to double the size of Temelín using taxpayers’ money.
My colleague Jan Ondřich will be producing a crisp summary of the Commission’s arguments in Czech, which I shall be sure to share with you shortly. In the meantime, here is the document in (very fine) English. Enjoy!
http://ec.europa.eu/competition/state_aid/cases/251157/251157_1507977_35_2.pdf