Trésor-Info - Publications de la direction générale du Trésor - Germany

The Economic Issues Surrounding Support for Renewable Electricity

2026-02-16T00:00:00+01:00

Renewable electricity, when used to supplement nuclear energy, contributes to achieving the goals of the energy transition. This requires the widespread electrification of uses in transport, construction and industry. Renewables also enable us to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels, which are mostly imported, and thus strengthen our energy sovereignty.

The competitiveness of renewable energy development projects depends on the sector (solar, onshore wind, offshore wind, etc.) and the ratio between their cost and the market price of electricity. In 2025, market prices in France were lower than in most neighbouring countries. While the cost of renewable electricity has fallen sharply in recent years, it has not yet reached the average level of current market prices in France. Hence, the development of these sectors still requires government support.

Support for renewable energy aims to improve the return on investment. Its cost increases when electricity market prices fall, and vice versa. The increase in the volume of renewable electricity receiving support will automatically lead to greater exposure of public finances to market price fluctuations. As a result, support for renewables has had to change, in particular by transferring more of the risks borne by government to producers.

Until 2035, the annual cost of supporting renewable electricity will continue to be dominated by the cost of contracts signed before the end of 2024 (see Chart). As a result of lower generation costs for renewable technologies, the unit support cost for new facilities will be lower than for existing ones. So, for solar and wind power, the average full generation cost for supported facilities should be approximately €80₂₀₂₄/MWh in 2035, compared with €120₂₀₂₄/MWh today, resulting in an automatic reduction in the cost of government support per MWh generated.

The Outcomes and Objectives of Apprenticeships in France

2025-11-25T00:00:00+01:00

In France, apprenticeships in secondary and higher education settings combine on-the-job training with formal learning at an apprentice training centre. At the end of the training period, apprentices obtain an occupational qualification, such as a diploma, degree or other occupational certification. Apprenticeships are meant to foster the employability of young graduates.

Since the 2018 reform of the system, apprenticeships have grown sharply in popularity among students pursuing their education. 879,000 new apprenticeship contracts were signed in 2024, compared to 306,000 in 2017, bringing the number of apprentices with an ongoing contract to one million at the end of 2024. This expansion was facilitated by the deregulation of the programmes offered by apprentice training centres. It was also bolstered by more flexible rules for contracts and the introduction of a government single subsidy scheme for employers of apprentices.

The sharp increase in apprenticeships has come with an almost tripled cost for the public purse. In 2023, the cost to public finances reached around €15bn, or €14,700 per apprentice. This level of government support is considerably higher than that of other European countries where apprenticeships are deeply rooted, such as Germany. Adjustments to apprenticeship support schemes in 2025 will help to curb their cost.

The rise in apprenticeships has occurred alongside major changes in the profiles of apprentices, who are now more likely to be students in higher education than in secondary school, and of employers, with a shift towards the service sector.

Apprenticeships are associated with an overall smoother transition from school to work for young people compared to academic-track students not doing an apprenticeship. For young people having obtained an occupational certification (certificat d’aptitude professionnelle – CAP) in 2021, 63% of apprentices were employed 18 months after their apprenticeship, compared to just 36% of academic-track students. This impact is less marked, however, as a person’s education level rises, and appears to be minimal at the master’s level.

Lessons from Past Industrial Policies

2025-02-13T00:00:00+01:00

Industrial policies aimed at the creation and development of specific sectors have made a comeback against a backdrop of a mounting number of crises, trade tensions, an accelerating innovation race and the imperative of combating climate change (see Chart on cover page). A study of policies in eight advanced and catching-up countries from 1945 to 2000 provides useful insight into the conditions determining their success or failure.

Industrial policy had similar aims in all countries studied: (i) growth and competitiveness; (ii) support for major transitions (energy, space, etc.); (iii) strategic autonomy and sovereignty; and (iv) support for declining sectors.

Although different models of industrial policy exist, most countries have intervened in a targeted manner in specific sectors. The catching-up countries (Japan followed by South Korea and China), France and the United Kingdom – up to the 1980s – directly intervened in the development of industrial production capacities. In the United States, sector measures were decentralised and limited to R&D support and government procurement in military and high value-added sectors.

The advanced countries’ sector-specific measures focused on emerging sectors with high stakes in defence- and sovereignty (aviation, energy and space in the post-war period followed, as in the catching-up countries, by electronics and IT). The catching-up countries initially focused on mature, but high-growth-potential mid-tech sectors (automobiles, chemicals and shipbuilding) and then on high-tech sectors (primarily electronics and IT).

International sector-specific industrial policy experiences provide useful insight for shaping today’s policies. For example, the success of both export aid conditional on performance in South Korea and the precise specification of ambitious technological goals in US development contracts suggests that setting high commercial and technological performance targets is a factor for success.

The Expected Benefits of the European Recovery Plans Introduced in the Wake of the COVID-19 Pandemic

2023-03-09T00:00:00+01:00

Following the COVID-19 pandemic and the emergency measures implemented to mitigate the loss of income for households and safeguard businesses, European Union (EU) Member States agreed on the NextGenerationEU (NGEU) package which is an unprecedented joint response to support the recovery, making over €800bn available to Member States.

The European recovery plan is financed by common debt for the first time in EU history and by national resources (see chart). The Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF), NGEU’s centerpiece, funds the Recovery and Resilience Plans (RRPs) comprising reforms and investments determined by the Member States.

European recovery plans are expected to foster the convergence in living standards within the EU since a significant share of RRF funds are allocated to countries with low levels of GDP per capita.

Recovery plan reforms and investment will underpin innovation and productive potential, thereby enhancing potential growth, and bring down structural unemployment, especially in those countries that had larger structural weaknesses prior to the pandemic. The European recovery plan will help take up the challenge of the green and digital transitions to which national recovery plans have to devote a minimum amount of green and digital investments.

The plans of some countries with current account deficits focus on supply-side measures. However, narrowing external imbalances within the EU and the euro area would have been more effective with better coordinated implementation of the European recovery plan: countries with large current account surpluses could have concentrated their plans more on demand-side measures. In this respect, bolstering the macroeconomic imbalances procedure (MIP) could contribute to improved coordination of economic policies in the EU.

Measurement of Government Consumption and Its Impacts on Output in 2020 and 2021

2023-01-12T00:00:00+01:00

Government final consumption expenditure (GFCE) is a component of final demand in the national accounts. It covers services provided to households by public administrations, including both the direct production of public services by central government, local government and social security bodies (such as education and defence) and expenditure incurred by government bodies for services provided by the private sector (such as healthcare reimbursements).

GFCE stood at 23% of GDP in France in 2019, at a level similar to the other leading European countries.Growth in GFCE is therefore an important component of GDP growth, but it is harder to measure than other components mostly because of the absence of market-based prices.

The French National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies (INSEE) and its UK counterpart the Office for National Statistics (ONS) reported a sharp decline in the output of public services during the first lockdown in the spring of 2020. The national statistics institutes in the other leading European countries (Germany, Italy and Spain), however, considered that the production of public services had not dropped.

INSEE and the ONS used additional indicators, such as the loss of teaching activity, whereas the other institutes kept their usual methodology.

The national statistics institutes estimated that the drop in GFCE in 2020 depressed GDP growth by -0.9 pp in France and -1.4 pp in the UK, whereas it contributed 0.8 pp to GDP growth in Germany and 0.7 pp in Spain.

The fact that these differentials reflect at least in part the different methodological choices made to measure output in 2020 suggests that differences in GDP growth between European countries in 2020 and 2021 should be interpreted with caution. These choices cease to affect GDP growth from 2022 onwards.