The fire of your local economy is your Energy producers

Link: BBC News website.

The French government has decided to change the laws that prevent the merger of two major French energy producers; Suez and Gaz de France. The French government will have a large say in this new company. The Italian energy producer Enel has recently expressed interest in a merger with Suez. It is a well known fact that the French hold to opinion that it is in the interest of the French economy if the Energy sector remains in French hands. The fire of your economy is your energy producer. An opinion which is also held by other countries like; USA, China, Russia, Italy, Spain, Germany, …
Conclusion is that this can only be seen as an protectionist move. The question is what the European Union is going to say about this. I think Nellie Smit won’t be pleased!

Recently the Dutch government decided to change the structure of the Dutch energy market. It was decided to split up the current structure in which the producers are also owner of the grid. They decided to put the network in Government hands and flush the energy producers onto the ‘free’ market. A move which is inline with the wish of the European Union to open up the energy market. The Dutch energy producers protested against this move as stripping them of their network would lower their net-value dramatically and make them vulnerable for hostile takeovers.
Experts warned the Government that this would mean that the bigger energy producers in the market would buy the Dutch producers and the Netherlands would loose its independance in that market area. A scary idea if you look how a Russian company like Gasprom is using their monopoly position to pressure their customers.
Other experts said that big takeovers would not happen soon, and if it happened it would be good for the shareholders.

I guess this means that within three years the energy sector of the Netherlands will be sold to France and Russia and the rest of Europe will have implemented protective measures to keep the energy sector in their own hands.