French and Polish companies must work together to massively reinvest in the nuclear sector, Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said on Monday at the largest conference of the French employers’ federation MEDEF, Euractiv reported, citing Rador.

At the MEDEF conference, which unites the most important players of the French industry, Moravetskyi was a guest and listened online to the President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyi.

“Ostpolitik…lostpolitik,” Morawiecki said in his speech, calling on French and Polish companies to carry the nuclear torch.

Warsaw, which is heavily dependent on fossil fuels and has no commercial nuclear power plants, announced in 2020 that it would have six nuclear reactors, but critics warn that launching the first nuclear plant by 2033 is an unrealistic timeline. Meanwhile, in 2020, more than 40% of France’s energy supply came from nuclear sources.

Economic recovery in Europe will require the help of the private sector, with 95 percent of German entrepreneurs saying they are willing to work together with their Polish counterparts, Morawiecki added.

Moravetskyi’s comments came amid warnings from French Prime Minister Elizabeth Bourne, who said on Monday that there could be “total” gas and electricity cuts over the winter if nothing changed.

At the conference, MEDEF president Geoffroy Roux de Béziers also criticized “some of France’s neighbors” for not investing enough in nuclear power, saying they “bear a great responsibility to History” by making the EU dependent on Russian gas – an apparent reference to Germany. Eastern political doctrine.

Zelensky, in turn, called on French companies to join the restoration of Ukraine, urging the French government and industry to cut ties with Russia and prevent Russian oligarchs from investing in real estate in France.

According to Yale University’s Chief Executive Leadership Institute, as of August 29, 2022, 243 French companies continued to operate in Russia, including Auchan-Retail, dairy producer LACTALIS and corporation and utility Veolia. More than 800 companies froze their activities or withdrew from it. generally from the country.

The call for more nuclear capacity comes at a time when the energy crisis has hit companies and individuals, and the price of a megawatt hour has reached 1,000 euros.

In this context, Prime Minister Bourne called on companies to take full responsibility for their role in limiting energy consumption, without which there could be “total gas cuts” and possibly winter blackouts. “Energy rationing,” she said, “will hit business first of all.”

While no specific measures have been announced, she said she would consider creating an “exchange market” where companies would buy the right to use energy. For now, the hope is that voluntary compliance will work long before the mandate goes into effect, if nothing else works.

Bourne has confirmed his commitment to the European Green Deal, which aims to cut the continent’s greenhouse gas emissions by 55% by 2030 compared to 1990 levels.

Other EU countries have already announced plans to take drastic measures to curb inflation and prepare for the worst.

Germany, for example, announced a reduction in the VAT on natural gas from 19 percent to 7 percent after a resurgence of social movements against the gas tax, which united several opposition parties against the ruling coalition.

The Austrian government, for its part, called for a European ceiling on energy prices and demarcation of electricity and gas prices. These issues are planned to be discussed at the next extraordinary Council of Ministers of Energy scheduled for September 9.

In Ireland, on August 24, the environment minister proposed higher electricity prices during peak hours to avoid overconsumption and possible blackouts. The debate on whether to tax profits or excess profits continues to make waves at EU level, and some European countries, including Spain, Italy, Germany, Hungary, Romania and the UK, have already introduced such measures.

France, along with its industry, is currently opposed to such a measure, although Born said in an interview with Le Parisien newspaper on Saturday that he would not rule out the idea if voluntary measures did not work.