UK heat on France over power

BRITAIN is on course for a fresh clash with France at next week's European summit in Barcelona over plans to open gas and electricity markets to full competition. It will back a proposal by Spain, which holds the EU presidency, to require all 15 member States to give consumers the right to choose between competing suppliers from 2005. However, the French are blocking the plans, risking a conflict that could overshadow the heads of Government meeting.

Tony Blair has complained to French President Jacques Chirac that while 10 Downing Street is lit by electricity from a French company, there is no such opportunity for a British firm to supply power to the Elysee Palace.

Britain and other EU members want to force France to commit to a timetable that would end long-running and increasingly bitter rows between France and several of its neighbours. They are fed up with State-owned Electricite de France (EdF) gobbling up power companies and market share on their turf while it is sheltered in its own market from effective competition.

In Britain, EdF is now the second-largest electricity supplier after buying London Electricity, and uses the cross-Channel power link for its subsidised nuclear-generated exports. However, British firms have no foothold in France, where only big industrial users can choose alternative suppliers. Spain and Italy, also subject to EdF's acquisitive incursions, have passed so-called 'anti-EdF' laws to contain the group's ambitions.

Most member States now believe opening energy markets is integral to making the EU the world's most competitive region by 2010. But at a meeting of EU finance ministers in Brussels this week France defied all 14 other member countries to block an agreement, insisting domestic customers be excluded from deregulation. A compromise proposed by Chancellor Gordon Brown won approval from every State but France.

With just over six weeks until the French Presidential election, Chirac and his socialist rival for the job, Prime Minister Lionel Jospin, are desperate not to allow energy liberalisation to become a campaign issue. Although French consumers suffer poor service from EdF, trade unions would fight any further market opening while loss of market share could undermine the economics of EdF's ageing nuclear generating stations.