2024-01-12 16:43:25
Published on Jan 12, 2024 at 5:43 p.m. Updated on Jan 12, 2024 at 8:02 p.m.
“I have even more energy and enthusiasm than the first day. “It’s time to accelerate, to see this transformation through to the end,” rejoiced Bruno Le Maire after the announcement of his confirmation as Minister of the Economy.
He is going to need energy, no pun intended, since he inherits a new portfolio, held until now by Agnès Pannier-Runacher, that of the Ministry of Energy Transition.
A collective reflection
Energy will therefore no longer benefit from its own ministry, as has been the case for eighteen months, a first in fifteen years. If he is indeed reappointed Minister for Industry, which should be the case according to consistent sources, Roland Lescure should inherit it.
At Bercy, we assure that this change in scope is the result of collective reflection, and not a desideratum of Bruno Le Maire. “There was a consultation between the Minister of the Economy and Finance, the President of the Republic and the Prime Minister, and it appeared that it made sense to bring industry and energy together to accelerate reindustrialization,” explains a source. of number two in the Attal government.
The attachment of energy to the Ministry of the Economy was also one of the first recommendations made by the Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry on Energy Sovereignty, chaired by the deputy for Haute-Savoie, Antoine Armand.
Nuclear power
Many, however, wonder about the consequences of this connection on the ecological transition. The answer can be found in the very recent bill on energy sovereignty, submitted for consultation and which must pass through the Council of Ministers by the end of the month or the beginning of the next. The text gives pride of place to the revival of nuclear power.
On the other hand, no quantified objective on renewable energies appears in this bill. A gap which had alerted professionals in the sector, the same ones who did not fail to criticize the disappearance of the Ministry of Energy Transition.
“We may be surprised by the absence of a full-fledged Ministry of Energy, especially after we experienced a historic energy crisis in 2022, which is not a subject behind us,” underlines Michel Gioria, general delegate of France Renewables. “The lesson of the past 18 months is that if we want an effective energy policy, we need technical mastery, an ability to listen and very detailed monitoring, on the ground, of all the elements: nuclear, renewables, sobriety plan… This great ministry must not take us away from it,” he insists.
The environmental emergency
A concern shared by certain NGOs, notably France Nature Environnement: “Considering energy under the sole economic and industrial development prism would be extremely simplistic and in contradiction with the environmental and climatic emergency, by favoring the techno-solutionist approach to the detriment essential sobriety. »
At Bercy, however, we want to be reassuring, citing the very recent creation within the powerful Treasury Department of a sub-directorate dedicated to ecological transition. Bruno Le Maire also noted that his German counterpart, Robert Habeck, had both the Economy and Climate Protection portfolios.
The future attribution decrees, whose publication is expected next week, should make it possible to see more clearly on the sharing of responsibilities between Bercy and the Ministry of Ecological Transition, still overseen by Christophe Béchu. Who will inherit the Directorate General for Energy and Climate? As for the negotiations at the next COP, which must take place in Baku, Christophe Béchu has obtained the assurance of representing France.
In this still nebulous organization, one thing seems certain: the General Secretariat for Ecological Planning (SGPE) should remain under the leadership of Antoine Peillon and always attached to Matignon.
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