In an interview with France’s Journal du Dimanche newspaper, French economy minister Emmanuel Macron said he was still confident that the project would go ahead, but a decision may now not be made until as late as September.
According to The Telegraph, He said the project would only go ahead if EDF’s financial position improved, there was a consultation with French trade unions, and “unspecified measures” were made to ensure construction goes according to plan.
EDF said last October that its £18 billion Hinkley project would go ahead “within weeks” following a six billion pound deal with China to build the first new reactors in a generation.
However a final decision, due to take place at an EDF board meeting at the end of January, was postponed to 16 February at the earliest, because of “difficulties with the financing of the project”.
Last month EDF Energy chief executive Vincent de Rivaz said “categorically” that Hinkley Point C will go ahead. Speaking before a meeting of the Energy and Climate Change Committee he said he expected a final investment decision to be made in mid-May, once the French government had made a decision on financing.
The decision has been repeatedly delayed because EDF has struggled to secure sufficient financing for the project. In March chief executive Jean-Bernard Lévy said it will not go ahead without the injection of extra capital from its 85 per cent shareholder – the French state.
Shortly afterward Macron said it would be a “mistake” to abandon Hinkley and suggested his government could help with financing by accepting dividend payments from EDF in the form of shares rather than cash.
However, Greenpeace and Ecotricity have argued that any such support from the French state would not be covered by the European Commission’s approval of state aid in October 2014, and said it would be illegal without a fresh decision by the commission.