Hollande envisaged forming a joint company to foster the countries’ energy transition, modelled on the European aerospace giant Airbus.

“We welcome the initiative for a closer co-operation in energy,” the German ministry official told Recharge.

“We are very open to discuss this in coming weeks and months,” she said, without giving details.

Both France and Germany plan a rapid expansion of renewables as Germany decided to phase out nuclear power by 2022 and France wants to reduce its nuclear capacity from 75% to 50% of its energy consumption.

Germany