We weren’t the ones to say it this time, although the name of the E.ON chief has appeared on this blog before. Now it looks that Mr. Wulf Bernotat has taken his lobbying on behalf of Gazprom a bit far, especially in his mission to make sure that there is no unbundling in Europe, inspiring an op/ed from the Financial Times which critically remarks that the German executive, who has placed his bets on the Nord Stream pipeline, seems to think that Brussels poses a larger threat to Europe’s energy security that Russia’s state-held firms. Of course the British should be following Mr. Bernotat also. Check out the story after the jump.
Excerpt from Paul Betts, European View, in the Financial Times:
Unbundling conundrumWulf Bernotat, Eon’s chief executive, has branded Brussels as a bigger threat to Europe’s energy market than Gazprom, the Russian group. He believes the European Commission’s proposal to break up the continent’s electricity behemoths – separating, or unbundling to use the industry jargon, transport and distribution from power generation – is misguided and would weaken Europe’s electricity sector.But if any country should consider unbundling it is Germany. The presence of six different electricity grids controlled by large generators makes it virtually impossible for alternative suppliers to enter the German market on a profitable basis. The problem is that if Germany’s electricity utilities are forced to break up, others in Europe would have to do the same.