Backtracking on green energy contracts would be a mistake, warns Engie boss

Governments should not go back and forth on energy policy and decarbonization targets if they want to attract investors, said Catherine MacGregor, the CEO of French energy giant Engie.

“Without trust, we cannot invest,” MacGregor said at POLITICO's competitiveness summit in Paris on Tuesday.

In the French government’s 2027 budget proposal, French Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu proposed backtracking on a number of renewable energy contracts, arguing that subsidies for green energy projects, particularly solar panels, were a major financial burden for the state.

MacGregor said such a move could imperil future investments in France.

“A contract is a contract,” she insisted, adding that “trust is very important” for investors to be able to spend money on energy projects in the long term.

France’s deteriorating public finances have become a central political issue ahead of the country’s presidential election next year. President Emmanuel Macron’s embattled minority government has been looking for ways to cut costs in a bid to bring down a stubbornly high budget deficit projected to come in at 5.4% of gross domestic product.

At the European Union level, Ursula von der Leyen’s second term at the helm of the European Commission has been marked by political pushback against the bloc’s core green policies, including Brussels’ landmark ban on combustion engines by 2035 and its emissions trading scheme.

But the bloc’s commitment to decarbonization gives investors the framework they need to plan ahead, MacGregor argued.

“Europe has one advantage: It moves slowly and that offers a certain level of stability which is very interesting for investors,” she said.

MacGregor defended the competitiveness of renewable energy projects as a means to produce energy locally and quickly, especially with gas prices so high.

“Renewable projects, when we do them well, in an organized manner and at scale ... we are able to be competitive,” she added.