Minister of Europe and Ownership Steering Tuppurainen will participate in the EU General Affairs Council meeting in Brussels. Hungary is the main topic of the meeting.
Europe- and the Minister of Ownership Tytti Tuppurainen (sd), negotiations on the fate of Fortum-owned German energy company Uniper are held between the companies and the German government’s representation. According to Tuppurainen, the Finnish state is not a negotiating party.
“We consider it important that Fortum gets back the eight billion in funding it paid to Uniper and, in general, that Finnish taxpayers do not incur any undue costs from the solution of this crisis,” says Tuppurainen as the state’s goals.
Other goals are to secure Fortum’s operational capacity and ability to invest, and to take care of the reliability of electricity supply.
“Of course, we do not accept nationalization without compensation. Compensation must be received for this,” Tuppurainen says.
Tuppurainen will participate in the meeting of the EU’s European Ministers, i.e. the Council of Ministers for General Affairs, in Brussels on Tuesday.
Coalition said on Tuesday that it intends to submit its own motion of no confidence to the government regarding the situation of the energy company Uniper, when the parliament will shortly discuss the energy gap issue for basic Finns.
Group leader of the coalition Kai Mykkänen has previously demanded that Finland must be ready to even sue Germany if necessary. According to Mykkänen, Germany is acting in violation of the European Energy Charter approved by the EU countries and the competition rules.
Tuppurainen is suspicious of the demand.
“The EU does not have such a court of appeal that could be appealed to here,” Tuppurainen says.
According to him, Uniper has valid binding gas supply contracts with its customers and it is a question of Germany’s national decision-making authority whether Germany ignores these valid contracts with its own legislation.
According to information from various news agencies, Germany may not allow Uniper to transfer 90 percent of the production prices of the gas it sells to German customers from the beginning of October, as it promised back in July.
“It is Germany’s national decision and there are no EU-level ways to influence this,” Tuppurainen says.
Tuppurainen also has an understanding of Germany’s activities. According to him, Germany’s drifting into an uncontrollable energy crisis could set in motion an “economic damage wave” that would not leave Finland aside either.
According to Tuppurainen, it is in Finland’s interest to find European-level solutions to the energy crisis, for example in accordance with the Commission’s recent proposals.
European ministers the main topics of the meeting include, among other things, a discussion on the rule of law based on the commission’s recent report on the rule of law.
On Sunday, the Commission said it would trigger a mechanism that could lead to a partial freezing of Hungary’s EU funding due to violations of the rule of law. Hungary, on the other hand, has promised several related reforms in order to save its finances.
“If the reforms are not credible and they are not credibly implemented, then the commission will have no other option but to introduce the rule of law conditionality, i.e. cut or freeze funding,” Tuppurainen says.
Ultimately, the matter is decided by the other member states.
#Tytti #Tuppurainen #Uniper #accept #nationalization #compensation
