From vegetables to eggs and fish, some twenty agri-food sectors are asking the State for help in the face of rising energy prices, concerned about the lack of a plan “at the height of the crisis and the distortions of competition within the EU “.
These sectors, which bring together farmers, manufacturers and sometimes distributors from one end of the food chain to the other, have been alarmed for several weeks by the “exorbitant” energy costs. The processing of beets into sugar or the storage of certain fruits and vegetables, for example, are particularly energy-intensive. In addition, several companies are reaching the end of their electricity contracts and must subscribe to new offers with prices that have skyrocketed.
Distortions of competition
The State has proposed several devices to deal with this outbreak, including an “electric shock absorber”, which provides for the payment of part of the 2023 energy bills of VSEs / SMEs. Not enough, according to the signatories of this press release, who criticize the “failure” of the European negotiations to agree on a tariff shield, which would have made it possible to avoid distortions of competition.
“Many of our companies buy (electricity) at prices above 500 euros/megawatt hour in the French market,” when Germany, for example, has set a ceiling at 130 euros per megawatt hour, they denounce. According to these inter-professions, including that of poultry or potatoes, this gap endangers the “competitiveness of French products”.
“Our companies could not survive at significantly higher energy prices (more than 180 euros per megawatt hour) than those of our European counterparts,” they stress. If they are not able to limit or transfer, at least in part, the increase in their production costs, the agri-food industries “will have no choice but to rationalize their ranges and/or drastically reduce their activities, or even stop them permanently”. .
Source: BFM TV
