"Uniper is a company of capital importance for the economic development of our country and for the energy supply of the citizens", justified the German chancellor on Friday.
Main measures of the rescue plan: the entry of the State into the capital of the group up to 30% and a public loan of up to 7.7 billion euros.
But taxpayers will also have to put their hands in the wallet: Berlin will authorize Uniper to pass on gas price increases to its customers, in order to help bail out the company.
The Germans should therefore expect to see their energy bill soar again, admitted the Chancellor.
He assured them that they would not be "left alone" in this crisis.
Interrupting his vacation for a speech at the Chancellery, the leader promised that the State will soon draw a new package of support for households, as yet unquantified.
The government will also reform housing benefits, he announced.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, July 22, 2022 in Berlin Christian Spicker AFP
Germany has already released more than 30 billion euros to support individuals in the face of the repercussions of the war in Ukraine which has destabilized the energy market and accentuated inflation.
– Losses in millions –
Uniper, the leading importer and storer of gas in Germany, has been hit hard by the fall in Russian gas deliveries since mid-June.
Arguing the absence of a turbine, the Russian giant Gazprom has reduced its deliveries by 60% via the Nord Stream gas pipeline, essential for supplying Germany.
The German group must now, to honor its contracts, obtain gas on the spot market where prices have exploded.
Result: Uniper, which employs nearly 12,000 people worldwide, loses "tens of millions of euros" every day, according to its boss.
Hundreds of German municipal utilities and energy suppliers are Uniper customers.
When the prices will be passed on to customers, from October, the additional charges could "amount to 200 or 300 euros per year for a family of four", warned Olaf Scholz.
But the state will be there, he assured.
"You'll Never Walk Alone", repeated the Chancellor several times, taking up the title of this anthem dear to many football fans.
Olaf Scholz was personally committed to preventing a bankruptcy of Uniper which would threaten, by domino effect, to dislocate the energy market and to cause shortages.
– Compromised budget –
Mr. Scholz and his government have been raising the specter of an energy "Lehman Brothers" for several weeks, in reference to the American bank of the same name whose bankruptcy precipitated the great financial crisis of 2008 in the United States and in the world.
But discussions to save Uniper have been bitter with the group's majority shareholder, Fortum, owned by the Finnish state.
The headquarters of the Fortum group, majority shareholder of the energy giant Uniper, in Espoo, Finland, July 22, 2022 Roni Rekomaa Lehtikuva / AFP
The latter pleaded for the transfer of the threatened activities to a separate entity, leading to the dismantling of the group.
Berlin, for its part, asked Fortum to participate in the rescue.
In addition to the public equity investment and the state loan, Uniper will see its emergency credit line increased to 9 billion euros with the public bank KfW.
The Uniper bailout and the next package of household aid could complicate Germany's return to fiscal discipline, promised for 2023.
Germany has lifted its strict financial rules during the coronavirus pandemic to help individuals and businesses.
The State had thus entered up to 20% in the capital of Lufthansa, weakened by the repercussions of the health crisis.
Since the start of the war in Ukraine, this is not the first time that the German state has had to come to the aid of the energy sector.
In early April, the government took control of the German subsidiary of the Gazprom group, which operates vital gas storage and transport facilities for Germany.
Here again, aid of 9 to 10 billion euros, via aid from the public bank KfW, had to be released.
© 2022 AFP