Spanje op de vingers getikt voor belemmeren fusie energiebedrijven (en)

The battle over the future ownership of European energy companies is continuing, with Brussels this week demanding rapid answers from Madrid over a planned Spanish-German energy merger.

The Spanish government decided earlier this year to impose strict conditions on the planned sale of Spain's major electricity group Endesa to the German energy giant E.ON.

The Commission has now responded in the form of a harsh letter from competition commissioner Neelie Kroes i, demanding that Spain ends what Brussels sees as the protectionist obstruction of the takeover.

Spain now has five days to reply to the letter.

The German-Spanish merger, which would create the world's biggest power group, has already received the go-ahead from Brussels.

But the Spanish National Energy Commission has imposed 19 conditions on the German company's €27 billion takeover of Spain's largest electricity company.

Among the conditions were that the merged company must sell a large portion of its generating capacity, its must sell assets on Spain's island territories and in the North African enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla and give up control of several nuclear power stations.

The demands were widely seen as an attempt to offer a helping hand to Gas Natural, Spain's leading gas company, which is competing against E.ON and has offered €21 billion in a rival bid.

Brussels is pushing to establish a pan European energy market including cross-border energy companies.

But Spain is using Article 21 of the EU merger regulation to argue its case. The article allows states to block takeovers on the grounds of "public security".

The planned German-Spanish energy merger follows a similar row between France and Italy at the beginning of the year.

The merger of two leading French energy companies Suez and Gaz de France into one of the world's biggest gas groups was announced only a few days after Italian energy giant Enel said it was interested in buying Suez's Belgian subsidiary, which is the leading utilities company in Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg.

The commission said (19 June) that it would open an in-depth probe into the merger saying it could have negative effects on competition of the free market in France and Belgium.