“Otherwise the lights will go out someday.”

E.ON CEO Wulf Bernotat will conduct an energy dialogue with the European Commission

The head of the largest German energy concern E.ON, Wulf Bernotat, presented a plan for reorganizing the board structure, which is proposed to be implemented during the first quarter of 2008. One of its main features is the transfer of the center of activity of the chairman of the board (i.e. Mr. Bernotat himself) to the sphere of dialogue with political and economic structures. After all, as you know, in recent months the European Commission has been coming up with legislative initiatives in the energy sector that affect the interests of large private concerns (in particular, there is a proposal to separate the transport component from them), which caused a protest not only from their leaders, but also from the heads of Germany and France. Angels Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozy.

At the same time, a greater degree of responsibility for the operational business of E.ON will be assigned to the supervisor of the operational area, Johannes Theissen, who will take over the post of Deputy Chairman of the Board from March next year. By this time, as planned, the current head of E.ON Ruhrgas, Burkhard Bergmann, who is also a member of the board of E.ON, will leave his position. His successor, Bernhard Reutersberg, will not join the board of directors of the parent concern. Thus, Mr. Bernotat noted, in such a reduced form, enterprise management will be more consistent with “ever more internationalized and increasingly complex business tasks.”

According to Mr. Bernotat, the new structure will open up the opportunity for him to begin a business dialogue between representatives of the economy and politicians. Angela Merkel asked him about this. At the same time, he assumes, first of all, to understand the fundamental question: what energy balance does Germany need in the future? The new dialogue, according to Mr. Bernotat, should be more flexible. To a greater extent than before, it should concern practical issues.

In this regard, the head of E.ON cited the example of the construction of a coal power plant in Engsdorf, the population of which, through protests, managed to achieve the cancellation of this project. “This does not promise anything good and causes concern,” Mr. Bernotat said. Currently, in environmental discussions, attempts are being made to reduce the role of coal, although “we are talking about investments in energy security.” The country, Mr. Bernotat pointed out, needs a wide range of energy resources and new power plants. “Otherwise someday our lights will go out,” he warned.

Yuri Shpakov, Berlin