EDF about europe essays

EDF about europe essays French issue about Europe : EDF (French national electricity company) needs to be privatised? EDF is a french public company which provides electricity in the entire France. It has a monopolistic position, and as a consequence, it has a huge turnover. This turnover allows investments everywhere. Furthermore, as EDF is a public company, it can borrow money from banks with the Government as guarantee. The possibility of getting loans which are supported by the State is a huge advantage. The company can find money easily to invest and to protect its monopolistic situation. As a matter of fact, EDF has a great advantage on its European competitors, which are private companies. The European community ask to the French government to change this situation by selling EDF to private investors. But at this time, this privatisation is not debating on the political scene. The subject was avoided during the presidential election of May 2002 because it is a French dilemma. Indeed, our country wants to keep this system in order to have a good repartition of the electrical network, particularly in the rural area. People are afraid that different private networks will break the good access to electricity in the areas which account just few inhabitants. Indeed, this kind of areas are not profitable places to provide an electrical service. On the other hand, the opening of this market will create competition, which could imply a diminution of the prices for the consumers... As a conclusion, we think that this French and European issue shows how complex and difficult the harmonisation of the Economies and Business laws in the EC is. ...