Europe fears a Lehman Brothers energy

Day after day, the energy crisis threatens to turn into a financial crisis. For two weeks, European energy companies, short of cash, have been calling for help from their States. End of August, germany advanced an additional 4 billion euros to Unite and Austria 2 billion to Wien Energy. Last weekend, Sweden made 10 billion euros available to its energy companies. On Tuesday, Finland granted a credit line of 2.35 billion to Fortum. At the same time, Switzerland announced that it would grant a payment facility of more than 4 billion euros to Axpo.

“All the elements are in place to lead to an energy version of the Lehman Brothers crisis”, Finnish Finance Minister Mika Lintilä warned on Sunday. If the price spike in gas and electricity is strangling consumers and companies, energy companies risk suffocation because of the uncontrolled inflation of financial mechanisms for deposits and calls…