Status: 12/16/2022 1:24 p.m
Germany is allowed to largely nationalize the crisis-ridden energy group Uniper. The EU Commission approved this today. The rescue of the utility threatened by bankruptcy will cost several billion euros.
The EU Commission has approved the takeover of the energy companies Uniper and Sefe (formerly Gazprom Germania) by the German government. Both companies got into difficulties as a result of the ongoing European energy crisis and in particular because of the cessation of Russian gas supplies and the sharp rise in gas prices, the Brussels authorities said. The respective nationalization would also give “no reason for competition law concerns”.
Now the Uniper shareholders still have to agree to the rescue. They will decide at an extraordinary general meeting on Monday how to proceed with the energy supplier. Uniper’s rescue operations are likely to cost the German state billions – it is currently assumed that the German state will have to pay around 30 billion euros.
The rescue package includes a capital increase of eight billion euros and the acquisition of Uniper’s shares from Fortum. It is planned that the federal government will pay a unit price of 1.70 euros for 98.5 percent of the shares, which would mean that the company would be almost completely nationalized. In November, Uniper also secured a capital injection from the federal government.
Important for the German energy supply
The gas wholesaler, which is heavily dependent on Russia, is a supplier to more than 100 municipal utilities and large companies, and thus plays a central role in Germany’s natural gas supply. Uniper’s insolvency would probably have triggered a domino effect that would also have caused great difficulties for numerous Uniper customers.
Uniper got into difficulties because of the Russian gas delivery stop, as gas prices have multiplied. The company has to buy the missing gas from Russia at high prices on the gas market in order to fulfill its own supply contracts at even more favorable conditions, which leads to liquidity problems.
Nationalization of Gazprom Germania
Gazprom Germania was a subsidiary of the Russian Gazprom Group. The federal government put the company under trusteeship of the Federal Network Agency in April. The name was then changed to Securing Energy for Europe (Sefe). In November, the Federal Ministry of Economics announced the nationalization in order to prevent the imminent insolvency of Sefe.
In both cases, the federal government had argued that the companies were of central importance for the energy supply in Germany. In the future, the Federal Ministry of Finance will be responsible for Uniper and the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs for Sefe. The EU Commission also justified its approval of the nationalization with the fact that the respective ministries “are not currently active in the same markets or in vertically linked markets” and therefore no antitrust problems would arise.