Energy concern Delta is to block the sale of Essent’s 50% stake in the Netherlands’ only nuclear power plant to the German power giant RWE, reports the Financieele Dagblad on Thursday.

Delta and Essent are joint owners of the Borssele nuclear power station.
On Monday RWE made a bid of €9.3bn to takeover Essent’s commercial activities.
Delta’s move to exclude Borssele from the deal emerged from comments by the Dutch economic affairs minister Maria van der Hoeven who last year said that she would do everything she could to prevent the nuclear power plant from falling into foreign hands, the paper says.
Public ownership
According to the statutes of the Borssele power plant, shares in the facility must remain in public ownership or in the hands of a Dutch company.
‘Changing the statutes requires the agreement of both shareholders and that is not something Delta is considering,’ Van der Hoeven is quoted as saying.
A spokeswoman for Delta, which like Essent is owned by local governments, told the FD that it is keen to takeover Essent’s 50% of the nuclear power plant itself.
Inside sources told the paper that a possible solution could be to split the economic and legal ownership of Borssele.
Van der Hoeven has, however, admitted that she does not herself have any means to prevent the nuclear power plant being sold to RWE, says the paper.