Just ten years ago, Mario Draghi, chairman of the European Central Bank, announcing in July 2012 that he will do all it is necessary “whatever it costs” to save the euro and putting into practice this decision, rescued the common currency. Europe was hardly emerging from the recession caused by the “sub-prime” crisis. The disclosure that Greece, with the assistance of a merchant bank, had forged its accounts in order to dissimulate the situation of its public finances, had started high tensions inside the euro zone. They were amplified by the revelation of the weakness of the Irish banks which were near default, and by the excessive Italy indebtedness.

So during that whole period, Europe had lived under the influence of a “twin crisis” where virtuous countries, with at the first position Germany, put pressures on their partners in order they adopt politically difficult measures. Then the high authority of the new ECB chairman was necessary to avoid the worst and to bring back the continent on the right trend. The current situation is not without making us to remind that period. After the sanitary crisis which has constrained the member-States to rid themselves, with the authorization of the European authorities, of their public finance rules, the countries are now facing the consequences of the invasion of Ukraine by Russia.

The reduction of the natural gas deliveries decide by Moscow as a retort to the sanctions has started a very strong rise of the fossil energies prices which has been transferred on electricity prices due to the European rules. European countries were already confronted to the consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic with the break-out of numerous supply chains from China. The rigorous lockdown policy adopted in this country still provokes in Europe tensions on the prices and temporary closures of production plants, especially in the car industry, due to the scarcity of essential components.

So Europe is confronted with an unprecedent inflationist wave for forty years which is adding itself to the public indebtedness increases due to supporting policies in favor of household and enterprises decided during the pandemic. But the parallel with the sub-prime and euro crisis stops there because at that time Germany was the good pupil of the region when today, it is the opposite. Inflation there is higher than in France and especially its choices regarding energy revealed themselves disastrous and have amplified the economic consequences on the whole Europe of the war in Ukraine.

Ten years ago, for electoral reasons hidden behind a speech in favor of environment, Germany decided to close its nuclear power plants and to massively invest in wind farms. But as these ones are intermittent, it was necessary to have at disposal thermal power plants. Regarding coal, that allowed to keep in activity many mines, notably brown coal ones, with thousands jobs rescued. Regarding natural gas, the choice has been made to privilege supply from Russia with all the repercussions in the whole Europe we observe today.

These decisions have been made even more difficult to manage than the stoppage, occurred at the worst time, of almost half of the French nuclear power plants and especially by the European regulation which consists in determining a price on the electricity market based on the production costs of the last available plants, i.e. natural gas power plants. These clauses were technically disputable and contradictory with the environment objectives.

The interconnexion of electricity networks between European countries is a necessity to guarantee the supply safety and to optimize the production on territories because these ones do not always need the same volumes of power at the same time. But it had never been envisioned that the trades would have such an extent. The choice of a regulated price was logical. It was taken the price of the power produced by the last available plant, able to produce because the hypothesis was that the nuclear plants were operating at the maximum of their capacities but that calculus mode had not taken into account the risks generated by the origin of the supply sources.

The European energy policy had another major weakness because each country was free to choose the allocation of the different power production modes. But it is not possible to satisfy the objectives regarding the CO2 emissions reduction and protecting supply safety with competitive prices without having a production apparel shielded against the market fluctuations and geopolitical tensions. The current energy crisis is bringing the proof of it. A progress has been accomplished through the recognition that the investments in nuclear can benefit from privileged financings but that will not be enough.

The energy crisis is the main cause of the current inflation and that one is not a transitory one as it was thought at the beginning. The ECB will have to adopt a much more restrictive policy to conform itself to its mandate and risks to sent the European Union into a recession in 2023. That wouldn’t have occurred if the unique market rules had included clauses compelling the countries to have diversified fossil fuels supply sources. That wouldn’t have occurred if Brussels had put on its guard Germany about the consequences for the whole Europe of its exit from nuclear after the Fukushima catastrophe.

We must go farer. The Maastricht Treaty had fixed, twenty years ago, a Stability Pact and criteria to be respected regarding inflation, public deficit and debt ceilings. Even if today these criteria are by large obsolete, countries have accepted to this sovereignty abandon which has given to the euro its credibility. The European currency became the second one in the world. That has allowed the State-members to finance themselves in good conditions and has constituted during the Covid-19 crisis a financial stability factor.

The power production is, as the currency, an essential element for each country growth and safety. Among the lessons to be taken from the current crisis, which is far from being over, must be included the obligation that everyone disposes of a power mix ensuring a minimal safety with a guaranteed imported fossil fuels supply diversity. Ratios measuring the share of each production mode and of each origin of imported from outside of Europe fossil fuels must be published and validated by the community institutions. They will be evaluated in function of the prices and safety objectives and their contribution to environmental choices. So would be instituted a Power Safety Pact that every State will have to comply with. Nuclear and hydraulic production would have their role as renewables but the pressure of a State on its neighbors, as that occurred in France regarding Fessenheim, wouldn’t be any more possible.

Current geopolitical tensions are making the European project more essential. Instead of denouncing it in the name of the coming back to sovereignty, which would be as an illusion as a suicide, in the current context, it is the duty of the European leaders to show they have understood the world evolution and that they are able to take the measures in the energy sector which correspond to this new state of the world as they did it with the adoption of the euro, and to recruit the new Mario Draghi who will put them in place.