France day-ahead power averaged €37.00/MWh on Monday 11 May, then cleared €69.63/MWh on Tuesday 12 May, an 88% intraday move1. Germany settled at €93.31/MWh the same day, down 22% on the day. The FR-DE spread compressed to €23.68 from €37.47 on 7 May, reversing much of the doubling from €55.75 on 28 April. ENTSO-E, the European transmission system operator network, published the day-ahead data via euenergy.live.
The pattern reflects a high-renewable Monday compressing French and German prices in parallel, then thermal-set prices returning on Tuesday as wind output fell back. EDF's nuclear fleet provided the baseload that suppressed French Monday clearing to €37; once thermal generation re-entered the merit order, the €32.63 gap to Tuesday opened in a single session. Forward positions taken on the €98 snapshot of 7 May now need to price daily swings above €30 rather than a static level. Forward desks now trade the €30+ dispersion rather than the headline level.
Hungary cleared €123.23/MWh on 12 May, €54 above Spain's same-day €69.23, the largest single-market premium in the briefing series. ACER named Hungary and Slovakia among seven national regulatory authorities in its 6 May TurkStream-entry derogation opinions; the European Commission has not ruled, and the 5 August deadline is the live decision window. Hungary's €54 premium compounds the political case for the derogation while the parallel CJEU challenge runs without a ruling date.
France-Germany has compressed; the edges, Hungary above and Spain below, have widened. Cross-border interconnector revenue for Coreso participants softens as the headline French-German arbitrage narrows, while forward positions on the €37+ snapshot of 7 May face mark-to-market pressure. Flamanville-3's September overhaul, removing approximately 1.6 GW of EPR nuclear baseload, will amplify both level and variance into Q4, compressing the buffer that kept France below Germany through most of Q2.
