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Alors que France Télévisions, Radio France et l'INA finalisent leur feuille de route 2024-2028 avec la rue de Valois et Bercy, des députés de la majorité demandent à être mis dans la boucle. Mais leurs requêtes se sont jusqu'ici heurtées au silence de l'exécutif.

La Maison de la Radio, siège de Radio France. © Ludovic Marin/AFP

Coups de téléphone répétés au ministère de la culture, à Bercy, demandes de données et de rendez-vous… Les parlementaires qui suivent le dossier sont bien déterminés à peser sur la négociation en cours des contrats d'objectifs et de moyens (COM) de l'audiovisuel public pour la période 2024-2028.

Mais la coutume de confidentialité entre dirigeants des groupes audiovisuels et cabinets ministériels est tenace. Quentin Bataillon, député Renaissance de la Loire et rapporteur de la mission d'information sur l'avenir de l'audiovisuel public, ainsi que Céline Calvez, députée Renaissance des Hauts-de-Seine et ancienne membre du conseil d'administration de Radio France, ont proposé un point avant l'été. La demande est restée lettre morte.

Contacté, le ministère de la culture assure, lui, que les députés seront reçus d'ici à la fin du mois de septembre, mais aucune date n'a encore été fixée et ces derniers redoutent, le jour J, d'être mis devant le fait accompli. Ils n'ont pas non plus été associés au grand rendez-vous des États généraux de l'information qui doit s'ouvrir à la fin du mois.

Des négociations en tête-à-tête

Habituellement, les COM se négocient à la fin du printemps et à l'automne entre les dirigeants des groupes audiovisuels publics et l'État actionnaire, représenté par le ministère de la culture et Bercy. Une fois signés par les deux parties, ces contrats sont soumis au vote des parlementaires. Ce vote semblait jusqu'ici une simple formalité, car la tradition voulait que députés et sénateurs votent les COM à la dernière minute, sans être en capacité de les amender. Il est aussi régulièrement arrivé qu'ils soient appliqués avant même d'être votés.

Mais après la suppression de la redevance audiovisuelle en août 2022 et son remplacement par une part de TVA, les parlementaires, à commencer par ceux de la majorité, ont obtenu un renforcement de leur contrôle.

L'avenant au contrat d'objectifs et de moyens 2020-2022, prolongé pour 2023, signé entre l'État et France Télévisions, stipule en effet noir sur blanc que députés et sénateurs doivent désormais être associés aux débats entre exécutif et groupes audiovisuels publics. Les élus s'appuient particulièrement sur une phrase de l'avenant qui prévoit que la phase de réflexion "doit se construire dans le dialogue avec l'ensemble des parties prenantes et les parlementaires. Les conclusions qui en seront tirées seront ensuite inscrites dans la prochaine génération de COM." Car les enjeux sont cruciaux, notamment au regard des montants concernés : 3,8 milliards d'euros pour une projection à cinq ans, auquel il s'agira de rajouter l'inflation.

Dernière chance

Dans leur rapport sur l'avenir de l'audiovisuel public remis le 7 juin dernier, les députés Jean-Jacques Gaultier (LR, Vosges) et Quentin Bataillon organisaient leurs préconisations autour de trois grands axes : d'abord, la poursuite de synergies entre les groupes de service public, à l'image de France 3 et France Bleu qui ont fusionné leurs matinales (celles de la radio étant diffusées sur la chaîne télévisée), ou encore avec la plateforme numérique d'informations locales Ici.

Le deuxième axe concernait la suppression totale de la publicité entre 20 heures et 6 heures du matin. Ils appelaient enfin à pérenniser le principe d'une fraction de la TVA, mis en place l'été dernier, après la suppression de la redevance.

Aux yeux des députés, le COM 2024-2028 serait donc celui "de la dernière chance" dans le sens où, selon eux, un échec des négociations ouvrirait définitivement la voie à une refonte des structures de l'audiovisuel public. En clair, à la mise en place d'une holding.

Le très violent conflit qui oppose, aux États-Unis, Veronica et Ilaria Bulgari, deux sœurs de la quatrième génération de la famille du fondateur du joaillier, a des effets de bord sur la discrète firme suisse qui gère la fortune du clan.

Arrière-petites-filles de Sotirios Bulgari, fondateur du bijoutier éponyme aujourd'hui filiale de LVMH, Veronica Bulgari et Ilaria Bulgari tentent depuis le début du mois, par avocats interposés, de négocier une issue au très vif différend qui les oppose depuis bientôt trois ans. La médiation, entamée cette semaine, est prévue pour durer jusqu'au 22 septembre. Le conflit a suscité deux dépôts de plainte, l'une devant le tribunal successoral de New York (Surrogate's Court) et l'autre devant la cour du Southern District de la ville. Il porte sur la gestion de deux trusts mis en place en 2005 par Nicola Bulgari, le père de Veronica et Ilaria, pour le compte de sa femme Anna Panzironi Bulgari dans le cadre de la formalisation de leur divorce.

À la mort de sa mère, en 2019, Veronica, l'aînée, est devenue administratrice des deux trusts. Or Ilaria, la cadette, n'a appris l'existence de ces structures financières qu'en 2020. Depuis cette date, elle conteste vigoureusement la gestion de sa sœur et, depuis juin 2022, sollicite devant la justice de nombreuses informations sur les investissements réalisés par celle-ci. À eux deux, ces trusts recèlent près de 130 millions de dollars.

Effet domino

Extrêmement acrimonieuse, la guerre entre les deux sœurs éclabousse, par degrés successifs, un cercle familial de plus en plus large. Elle implique même Elystone Capital, le très discret cabinet suisse qui gère la fortune de la dynastie. À l'origine, Ilaria Bulgari réglait les honoraires des avocats qu'elle emploie contre sa sœur par le biais d'Elystone. Mais Nicola Bulgari a demandé au gestionnaire familial de cesser de financer ce procès. Cette intervention a suscité deux plaintes d'Ilaria contre Elystone.

De son côté, Veronica a, elle aussi, impliqué le family office du clan dans son conflit avec sa sœur. Elle a offert à Ilaria de placer dans une nouvelle structure la part des deux trusts qui lui revient, à condition que la gestion de ce nouveau véhicule soit assurée par Elystone. Une offre qui a suscité la fureur de sa cadette.

Une position inconfortable

La guerre des deux sœurs Bulgari est particulièrement gênante pour le gestionnaire de fortune suisse, car le destin de la société est irrémédiablement lié à la famille Bulgari. Depuis 2008, Elystone compte parmi ses actionnaires Francesco Trapani, cousin de Veronica et d'Ilaria. Fils de Lia Bulgari, Trapani est l'architecte du succès de Bulgari et de la vente, en 2011, du joaillier à LVMH. Il a également présidé le conseil d'administration d'Elystone.

Le lien organique du gestionnaire genevois avec les Bulgari a permis à Elystone de jouer un rôle central dans l'administration des 1,9 milliard d'euros en actions LVMH obtenus par la famille en échange de l'entreprise familiale. Mais elle l'expose désormais à une publicité intempestive. Dans l'une des nombreuses motions to dismiss déposées par ses avocats devant la cour du Southern District de New York, Veronica Bulgari suggère de faire témoigner à la barre "des représentants d'Elystone"…

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WestRock, Smurfit Kappa in talks to create company with combined value of roughly $20 billion

WestRock WRK -0.53%decrease; red down pointing triangle is nearing a deal to merge with Europe’s Smurfit Kappa SMFKY -1.75%decrease; red down pointing triangle in a move that would create a global paper and packaging powerhouse worth some $20 billion.

A deal could be announced next week, assuming the talks don’t fall apart, the people said.

Atlanta-based WestRock makes packaging for everything from medicine to pizza and home-and-garden products. The company, which reported sales of $21.3 billion in fiscal 2022, was formed in July 2015 by the merger of MeadWestvaco and RockTenn. It had a market capitalization of about $8.2 billion as of the close of trading Tuesday, its stock down about 9% so far this year. The shares rose about 10% after hours when The Wall Street Journal reported on the possible tie-up with Smurfit, which was worth nearly EUR 10 billion ($10.7 billion).

Dublin-based Smurfit Kappa was founded in 1934 as a maker of cardboard boxes and packaging boxes for the Irish market, according to its website. A merger between Jefferson Smurfit and Dutch rival Kappa Packaging in 2005 gave rise to the company known as Smurfit Kappa today, which makes packages for consumer companies, e-commerce operators and industrial products, and has regional offices in Amsterdam and Miami.

International Paper decided in 2018 not to go ahead with an EUR 8.9 billion proposed offer for Smurfit Kappa, blaming a lack of engagement by the Irish company’s board and management, which rejected several approaches from their industry rival.

Since that time, Smurfit has made several acquisitions, including the purchase of Cartonbox, a folding-carton company located in Mexico, and an agreement to buy Pusa Pack, a bag-in-box packaging plant based in Spain.

A combination would accelerate Smurfit’s expansion in the U.S. and other countries in the Americas. Last year, that effort included acquiring corrugated-packaging plants in Argentina and Brazil, according to the company’s annual report.

WestRock is also no stranger to deals. Its biggest recent transaction was in 2018, when the company acquired KapStone Paper and Packaging for nearly $5 billion. That has contributed to a hefty debt load, which exceeded $10 billion as of June.

A merger could bolster the companies at a time of weakening demand and declining prices for containerboard, the material used to make corrugated shipping boxes and industrial packaging, and a gloomy outlook for the global paper business. It is another sign that the pandemic demand boom is fading.

WestRock earlier this year withdrew its 2023 guidance, instead focusing on quarterly guidance. Chief Executive David Sewell told investors last month that the business was looking to streamline its portfolio and cut costs.

The deal could be the first big post-Labor-Day transaction following a lull for most of 2023. Overall deal activity in the U.S. is down 30% so far this year, according to Dealogic.

In the absence of a global carbon tax, the green transition could prove politically expensive

In the utopian vision of net zero pledges, there will be no new petrol cars on EU roads from 2035, American industry will run on green hydrogen, wind farms will whirr across the North Sea, and solar power will bring all Africans affordable energy.

The IMF claims all this can be achieved without straining government finances.

Estimates by its staff, presented at a recent conference, suggest that co-operation on decarbonisation could ensure countries meet their net zero targets at an overall economic cost of just 0.5 per cent of what global GDP is expected to be by 2030. For most countries, the fiscal impact would be positive or neutral by the end of the current decade, although some would incur later losses.

Take the fund at its word and reaching net zero looks “entirely doable and surprisingly cheap”, said Luis Garicano, a London School of Economics professor and former member of the European parliament.

But there’s a snag. The IMF estimates assume a global accord to price or tax carbon and redistribute the proceeds to the developing world, while also scrapping current subsidies for fossil fuels.

The reality of countries’ attempts to decarbonise their economies is far removed from such hypotheticals.

Less than a quarter of global emissions are currently covered by a carbon tax or price, while governments’ commitments to green targets are under increasing strain. “[The IMF’s scenario] is desirable but it’s just not happening,” said Jean Pisani-Ferry, professor at Sciences Po.

The consequence, said Helen Miller, deputy director of the UK’s Institute for Fiscal Studies, is that when it comes to hitting net zero, lawmakers could opt for solutions that are politically expedient but economically less efficient.

“Ultimately we’ll achieve net zero in a more costly way,” she said.

On any reasonable estimate, the scale of funding required to hit net zero is vast. In 2021, the International Energy Agency calculated that annual investment would need to rise from an annual $2tn to almost $5tn, or 2.5 per cent of global GDP, by 2030. It would still total $4.5tn in 2050.

Lord Nicholas Stern, chair of the London School of Economics’ Grantham institute and a former World Bank chief economist, estimates an extra $3tn a year is needed, totalling $100tn over 30 or 40 years, to boost renewable energy, electrify transport systems, decarbonise the heating and cooling of buildings, and foster green hydrogen. 

Economists broadly agree that most of this investment has to come from the private sector. “Some estimates on climate change transition are in the stratosphere,” said Mahmood Pradhan, head of global macroeconomics at Amundi Institute. “The demands of net zero are just too high [to come from governments alone] — they have to come from the private sector.”

But governments are already spending hundreds of billions on incentives and subsidies for businesses and households, on research and innovation, and on public infrastructure ranging from electricity grids and flood defences to bike lanes.

Meanwhile, revenues from carbon taxes — if these succeed in lowering emissions — may not offset the loss of income governments receive through fuel duty. 

“Even if they’re successful — while that may be a good thing in itself — they’re not going to raise very much,” said Judith Freedman, professor of taxation law at Oxford university.

New modelling by the OECD, based on a mix of policies closer to current reality, points to a higher fiscal cost than the IMF’s projections. At global level, it finds net public revenues declining by 0.4 per cent of GDP in 2030 and 1.8 per cent in 2050.

The fiscal costs would vary between regions, coming in lower where governments rely more on regulation to cut emissions, and rising to 3.4 per cent of GDP in the Americas, because of generous US subsidies contained in legislation such as the Inflation Reduction Act.

“People have to take into account the scale of the transformation needed,” said Shardul Agrawala, head of the OECD’s environment and economy integration division. “We shouldn’t present things as a free lunch.”

One big uncertainty is whether green investments will displace other investment that might, in the short term, have done more to boost productivity — or whether they will be supplementary, injecting energy into mature economies suffering from sluggish growth.

Stern argued that while there are significant public spending challenges, green investments will pay off amply over time — especially if welfare gains, such as better air quality, to future generations are counted.

“We still live in a world where planned saving is in excess of planned investment,” he said. “This is the growth story of the 21st century.”

Nevertheless, the few countries that have done their own calculations on the likely cost of the green transition expect a bigger impact than the IMF.

The UK’s Office for Budget Responsibility said in 2021 that hitting net zero would add 21 per cent of GDP to debt by 2050, with the loss of fuel duty representing the biggest single cost. 

Pisani-Ferry, who led a recent report for the French government, estimated that it could add as much as 25 percentage points of GDP to the public debt by 2040. 

This higher figure is partly because taxpayers are likely to shoulder more of the cost in a country where the state traditionally plays a bigger role.

Pisani-Ferry also thinks governments have underestimated how far they will need to help households. For French people on middle incomes, installing a greener heating system would cost a year of earnings, he noted, adding: “It’s too much to assume it will happen without significant public support.”

“The mantra is no additional borrowing, no further taxation,” Pisani-Ferry said. “I don’t see yet how that is going to add up.”

Without new sources of revenue, governments would need to consider whether higher public borrowing can fund the green transition — a big ask given soaring borrowing costs and the need for more spending in other areas, ranging from defence to pensions and healthcare, as populations age. 

However, the bill for reaching net zero must be settled no matter how large. “The real metric is, what is the cost of inaction?” said Agrawala.

The era of cheap offshore wind is over in the UK

Industry says projects are less viable because costs have rocketed but the price they receive for electricity has not

It has been a bruising summer for Britain’s net zero emissions target.

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak committed to more oil and gas licensing. Long- hoped-for changes allowing more onshore wind development fell short of expectations and Vattenfall, one of the world’s biggest offshore wind developers, put the brakes on a huge project in UK waters.

The latter received less political attention. But it is just as troubling, not least because the government intends offshore wind to replace gas-fired power stations as the backbone of Britain’s electricity system. It has set a target of 50 gigawatts of offshore wind capacity by 2030. With seven years to go, we are more than 36GW short. The Vattenfall project would have contributed 1.4GW. Not many more projects can fall by the wayside.

The news isn’t expected to get much better. Offshore wind executives have low expectations for a key renewable energy contract auction, the results of which are due on Friday. Trade bodies representing the biggest developers in the business are calling for reform of the way offshore wind is funded in Britain. Expect those calls to intensify.

Costs have rocketed by 40 per cent this year. Little that goes into making an offshore wind farm, from the turbines to the cabling, has been untouched by inflation-busting price rises.

The industry is partly to blame. In recent years it has raced to deliver projects at lower and lower prices. Developers have squeezed suppliers. Now the supply chain is not only passing on big increases in raw material and energy prices, it is also trying to recover margins. 

Many of the warning signs were apparent long before Russia invaded Ukraine last year. Danish turbine maker Vestas raised a red flag about spiralling raw material and transport costs in 2021. Executives across the industry should have paid more attention.

Offshore wind companies are justified in one complaint: the prices that the UK offers developers for the energy capacity they deliver haven’t kept up with rising costs.

Each year offshore wind developers compete for government contracts that guarantee them a fixed price per unit of electricity produced once their turbines are spinning. The government sets a maximum price for each auction. Companies have to offer that price or less. They sell their output on the open market and must pay the difference to the government if the market price is higher and vice versa if it is lower.

In this year’s bidding round, the maximum price was £44 per megawatt hour in 2012 prices, closer to £60/MWh today. A quirk of renewable energy contracts is bid prices are expressed in 2012 money.

UK electricity prices are currently around £87/MWh. A similar auction in Ireland this year cleared an average of €86.05/MWh (£73.50/MWh). Companies are already lobbying about next year’s UK auction. 

Some developers are still building projects, despite the difficult conditions. One example is Iberdrola’s 1.4GW East Anglia Three project off the Suffolk coast. But organisations such as RenewableUK, a trade body, warn Britain’s 50GW target could be in jeopardy.

One possible answer is for the government to align prices more closely to the cost of materials such as steel. Ireland is already using similar indexation. Longer-term tax incentives such as capital allowances are another. 

Flint Global consultant Josh Buckland said the government could help developers by explaining well in advance how maximum bid prices will be set. Offshore wind companies complain they currently only receive information a few months before auctions open, while projects take years to develop.

In return for higher prices, ministers could demand a higher proportion of components are sourced from UK suppliers. Critics have long complained that most UK taxpayer subsidies for renewables benefit companies abroad. It would be one way for the government to ensure UK workers benefit from UK subsidies. But it is likely to mean component costs will go up.

For their part, developers could look for additional sources of funding for wind farms, such as contracts to sell the electricity to large corporations. Or they could take a bet that some of their output can be sold at higher prices on the open market, said Dan Monzani of Aurora Energy Research, a former government director of energy security.

Offshore wind companies bear some of the blame for the mess in which the industry now finds itself. But if the government wants to meet its 50GW target, it will have to accept offshore wind energy prices cannot continue to fall — the first developers to receive government contracts in 2015 were guaranteed prices of above £114/MWh. Ministers will have to meet the industry halfway if they want more turbines spinning in the North Sea.