project is complex. Our geographic coherence based on Europe is a strength. In works, we went on with the development of our anchoring in the target European countries. We have strengthened our specialty lines of business by external growth and go on projecting our export, our expertise in the rest of the world, in Africa and in Latin America. On the Concessions side, we are a player and actor of the whole of the value chain, and the wish to strengthen and diversify our portfolio of Concessions to remain a recognized actor in this business. Our will is to maintain in time this balance works and Concessions on the territories where we are sustainably rooted. From 2012 to 2016, the group focused on this organization and the improvement of its profitability. During those five years, the revenue stagnated around EUR 14 billion.
Since 2017, the group is in a growth traction with a revenue close to EUR 19 billion in 2021. 35% of growth in four years if we neutralize 2020 are translating a good collective traction. This growth in volume did not impact the profitability of the group since the margins followed suit. I'll get back to that in separating works and concession. Finally, the very strong increase of the net profit beyond the operational performance was borne by the strong decrease of financial expenses and the decrease of taxes on companies in France. In works, the dynamic of growth since 2017 didn't overshadow the continuous work since 2011 on the improvement of the profitability. Hence, the net profit increased twice faster than the activity with the works margin at 3.7% in 2021.
We are convinced that we can go on progressing and overshoot 4% of margin works beyond France. The development of the group was done by prioritizing some European groups, as you can see on the slide. The growth in the key countries like Belgium, Netherlands, Luxembourg, and Germany was twice as strong as in France on the same period of time. Adding the activity in Switzerland and the very important dynamic in Spain, I remain convinced that in our businesses, performance will be reached by remaining local recognized players. Better be in few countries but be strong there. This is the key to attract the best talents. Internationalization of the group progressed in the past years, but it focused on the European continent as we wished. As you can see on screen, the organic growth remains the main driver of development of the group.
Program of the whole Paris Express program was and remains a beautiful opportunity, but relays exist already when you see projects like the European Lyon-Turin Tunnel or CéGELog, just for example. Outside of France, it's also our capacity to deploy our know-how, global know-how that enable us an organic growth to catch nice opportunities like the lots of HS2 in the U.K., Motorway A3 in Germany or Motorway E18 in Norway. Organic growth hence contributed to the internationalization of the group since it represents EUR 1.8 billion of growth, including EUR 1.45 billion in Europe. This development also enabled the sustainable strengthening of our goodwill in those countries. The other driver of growth is generated by the external growth with two additional approaches.
External growth of proximity on the go, coming to strengthen our territorial meshing and the entrance in new countries or the acquisition of new lines of businesses. The external growth of proximity is present at Eiffage Énergie Systèmes, and to a lesser extent in the other branches in Germany and in Belgium. The group developed in the Netherlands with acquisition of Kropman and in Switzerland with Priora. Specialty side, the two major acquisitions are Meccoli in the rail and Sea Works and Saipem in civil engineering. In Concessions, the growth is much more regular based on the growth of circulation and tariff revisions.
Operational margin moves in line with the growth in a regular way, notably the EBITDA margin of the Motorway Concessions, and this until the COVID pandemic. End of 2021, Concessions didn't have yet recovered the performance of 2019. This is the case since the first half year, 2022.
As you see on the slide, this period has also been accompanied by a decrease of 60% of the cost of debt. As you know, we are working to the strengthening and diversification of our Concession portfolio. This represents EUR 2 billion investment since 2015. We are pulling four levers. Three first levers are about organic growth. First lever, our successes for tenders of concessions, Airport of Lille, 2019, Motorway A79, 2020, Cergy-le-Haut contract, 2022. These Concessions are won by mobilizing the whole of the know-how of the group and beyond a significant activity of works, enabling to secure additional assets. Second lever, plan contracts or recovery, enabling extension of duration and extent of investment.
The recovery plan of 2015 for APRR and AREA, the merger of the contract Tunnel Maurice-Lemaire with APRR in 2016, Prado-Carénage Tunnel in 2019, and the Autoroute de l'Avenir, the motorway of the future in Senegal in 2021. Third lever, the buyback of minority stakeholders in our concessions. APRR in 2020, ADELAC 2016, 2020, A65 in 2021. Fourth and ultimate lever, external growth. Participation of 5% in Getlink in 2018. Buyback of 49.9% of Aéroport de Toulouse-Blagnac in 2019. Acquisition of hydroelectric power plants since 2019. And Sun'R, the operation underway, and there's a communiqué being released this evening. I'll say a few words about that later. It's by moving all those levers that we wish to go on with our strengthening and diversify our Concession portfolio while remaining focused on the territories where we're sustainably located.
Over the same period, our balance sheet strengthened. Following dividends, we generate between EUR 300 million and EUR 400 million of free cash flow per year available to the holding to develop the group. Performance of these past years and the outcomes make us confident to increase our development by external growth, especially in the new renewable energies and the businesses in energy, generally speaking, but remaining focused on the European countries where we are well-rooted. We wish, in parallel, maintain the traction that we always had in organic growth because it remains very creator of value. These years didn't lead us to miss the importance of the major challenges of digitization, but mainly environmental transition. Group worked on those challenges in the past years. Our compact organization and the proximity between the lines of businesses enable us to be reactive to deliver global solutions to our clients.
The challenges climate carbon have been restated through our annual climate reports, as well as our action plans in favor of biodiversity. We decided in 2021 to set ambitious targets of reduction of the greenhouse gas releases to be compliant to the route to 1.5 degree and aim at carbon neutrality in 2050. Those elements enabled us to confirm our extra financial ratings, A- from CDP and AA from MSCI. What's also very interesting that with 95% of our activity in Europe, all of our entities in the various countries are facing the same challenges and are working in the same regulatory framework of the European Commission. It wishes to turn our continent into a flagship for the world. The tradition to this European roadmap is a very strong factor of synergy.
As you have seen, the European anchoring of the group strengthen its consistency and puts it naturally at the core of the great current trends impacting our cities and our infrastructures. The crisis of COVID acted as a fantastic accelerator of digitization, and the war in the Ukraine is already a powerful accelerator of the environmental transition and the research for industrial sovereignty and energy sovereignty. This will compulsorily go through efforts of sobriety and development of sustainable mobilities. The group has the capacity to meet efficiently to those major challenges. To illustrate the impact of those activities generated by those trends that will lead the development of the group and our sector for decades. I decided to put forward our highlights of the half year through those topics. Energy sovereignty.
In the wind farms sector in full expansion, where we're a major player with a recognized know-how, several lines of businesses of Eiffage are active, and you have seen that in the short movie at the opening of this meeting. We're also European leader of installation of sun farms, while French and Spanish teams are recognized for the building of wind farms, sun farms, that we assure the maintenance for durations of five to 20 years. In France, we take part actively in the development of the offshore wind farms through several projects. On the wind farm off the shores of Saint-Brieuc, Smulders were responsible for the top side and the foundation of the substation. The manufacturing was performed in the Netherlands and in Belgium. The sea transport of the top side and of the foundation took place, as you have seen, end of June 2022.
We implement also the monopiles and transition pieces of the 80 windmills of the offshore park of Saint-Nazaire. The linking by cables to the delivery position and the delivery of the 80 modules of power installed within the masts. Active for the past 20 years in this sector, Smulders produced in 2021 its 2,000th piece of transition aimed or earmarked for the Saint-Nazaire wind farm. We build also the maintenance base of the wind farm of Fécamp, where stakeholders and the pilot of the wind farm, floating offshore farm in the Gulf of Lion, the Mediterranean. The three jackets that will bear the future windmills are being built in Fos-sur-Mer. In Germany, Smulders won end of June a joint venture, a contract for the manufacturing of 60 pieces of transition of the future wind farm in the grid.
Each piece of transition will measure 30 meters high, diameter close to 8.5 meters with a unit weight of 700 tons. The pieces will be manufactured in our English manufacturer in Newcastle. Solar farms. Over 70 solar farms have been built since 2017 by Eiffage in Europe, Africa, Latin America, Caribbean. Over 3.5 GW. For only 2021, we installed 1.4 GW, and end of July 2022, we already have in our orders more than 1.4 GW. Some examples on screen. The solar farm of Boyer and Jugy near the A6 motorway. The solar farm Illoulofin in Benin. That's the first major solar farm with 25 MW in this country. Audenge power plant in Arcachon, Nouvelle-Aquitaine.
In our European countries, energy sovereignty will be a key to succeed in the environmental transition while speeding up the research of energy sovereignty. Within the group, we have all the expertise necessary to the overhauling of the apartments and offices and the solution to industrialize the building. Beyond energy sovereignty, circular economy takes part to sovereignty, generally speaking, by reducing the pressure on the natural resources. The group is very active in the building of new apartments with a refurbishment of the apartments. 135 apartments in Laval are being refurbished. Buildings dating back to 1956 that will be getting several changes in terms of energy conservation. Other operation, the eco-neighborhood Lizé in Montigny-lès-Metz. A refurbishment of former barracks according to the lines of the City Hall of Metz.
In June, we won in a joint venture the contract for the second stage of the renovation of the National Theatre for Dance, Palais de Chaillot in Paris. Integrated on the recovery plan of the government, we are also committed to performance on energy as well as the environment. In the framework of the contract, CéGELog, for the Defense Ministry, we shall refurbish over 8,000 apartments with an aim of improving their energy performance. Tertiary. In Paris, our teams renovated the former headquarters of Peugeot, renamed LIVE. Project will enable a life of the building aimed at energy sovereignty and the comfort of the users. Our facility, Goyer, signed a contract for the renovation of the Tour Ariane at La Défense. 152 meters high, this building. This was called the Tour Société Générale.
Our construction team started the modernization of the former Tour First at La Défense with a restructuring of three levels. Last example in Brussels, where three subsidiaries of Eiffage Énergie Systèmes are renovating the office building, the first to reposition it in a top-of-the-range innovative building. It will work with solar energy, with a solar farm on the roof and on all the façade. Delivery in December or January 2023. The group development specialty lines of business has the demolition-reconstruction, which is a perfect example of jobs and mutation because it is a key player of circular economy. We now reach over 90% of recycling in our demolition projects. On our projects of buildings, we favor the re-employment.
The project of eco neighborhood in Lizé, built on a former building, was totally made with materials coming from the deconstruction of the barracks. The material not used are offered to individuals in a shop called the RéaVie, employing people being redeployed. The group also was a forerunner in the industrialization of production processes with integration of B3 Ecodesign. On the left-hand side, the Nouvel'R program in Claye-Souilly. First operation in industrialized solution with containers, sea containers recycled. 20 new buildings equipped with sun farms. At the center, the grammar school of Clermont-Ferrand, wood, walls and straw. Right, young active residents, Villa Dorma in Salon-de-Provence, delivered in March 2022. 219 apartment units in wood associated with off-site logs HVAC, reducing the consumption of energy.
As I said previously, the war in Ukraine acts as a powerful accelerator for the industrial sovereignty. Our group contributes to meet this challenge, noticeably by the implementation of factories and data centers in Europe. We're building the most important manufacturer of fuel cells, hydrogen fuel cells in Europe and Lyon. This will have the headquarters of Symbio, its R&D development, and the unit of manufacturing of hydrogen systems. We're also building the Gigafactory ACC, regrouping Saft, TotalEnergies, Stellantis, Opel, and Mercedes-Benz, devoted to production of battery modules and cells for cars in Douvrin. A building of 644 meters long, 20 side buildings, and the revamping of 17,000 square meters. First factory of this kind in France, it will have a capacity of production of 8 GWh.
We just won a new contract for the extension of a production site in Crolles. All of the contract remains subject to the execution of the final agreements and to various regulatory approvals. Finally, a new example in the Netherlands, the turnkey manufacturer of Kite Pharma for the innovative technology of struggle against cancer. I was talking also about the data centers. There is an increasing demand, and we see the first project of hyperscale in Europe on which we are on active development. Movement, infrastructure. Mobility contributes strongly to the consumption of energy and to the release of carbon. Eiffage committed itself through its various expertise to master the environmental impact of its activities and support its customers towards new mobilities. On the program Grand Paris Express, the tunnel works are over on the lines 14, 15, and the EOLE projects.
Two tunnel borers are still in activity on line 16. The last borer should take place in the first half of 2023, and the rails and catenaries are going on. Works on the stations of La Courneuve-Six-Routes and Le Blanc-Mesnil are underway. In the first half-year, teams of Eiffage Énergie Systèmes won several new contracts in joint venture. Two for the refurbishing of system of ventilation and decompression of the parts south of line 15 and the extension south of line 14. The multiservice network and system of monitoring of line 18, and recently, the market of equipment and traction works of line 18. Eiffage Construction teams won the market of structure of the stations of Aulnay, Sevran-Beaudottes, Sevran-Livry, as well as the servicing part.
Eiffage Immobilier will implement an additional project in Aulnay-sous-Bois, a mixed program with 380 apartment units, public equipment, shops and a parking. We have currently 2,000 people working on various projects of the Grand Paris Express. Roadside, we focused our research on the emergence of a vegetal range, enabling to suggest decarboned alternatives to the tar, and answer to all the uses of cycling tracks to the motorways as Biophalt, as well as Recytal-ARM and Bioklair with its clear coating. We have highlight also our advance with 70% of the areas of the motorways APRR area now equipped with electrical charging station, 56% of them in high power. As foreseen, 100% of our rest areas will be equipped at the end of 2022.
As a comparison, and for your information, as of July this year, the amount of recharges was 2.5 x the one of July 2021, to reach almost 50,000 recharges on our rest areas. So as to reduce the emissions of CO2, APRR generalizing the solutions to make the traffic of cars and of trucks, lorries, without tickets. So we have a first on Montmarault on the A79. Thanks to the identification of the vehicle by its subscriber badge or its license plate, the customer can go through the toll without having to stop to take a ticket. This technology will be made available on the A41 since Chambéry to Annecy. In 2022 will happen for the first time on this scale on the French territory, the implementation free-flow e-toll on the A79.
This will enable of the customer to pay without having to stop. The customer with a badge will have a pass, and the nonsubscriber will pay through a platform over the Internet. This technology will enable the fluidity of the traffic, so a decrease of the release of CO2, especially for the heavyweight. As you see through those major trends that follow the crisis of the COVID and the war in the Ukraine are already very important sources of opportunity for the group. Recovery plans implemented produce effects, and the demand remains very strong. Testimony of it, the robustness of our book of order. However, the major challenge is to attract and make loyal our talents and to remain very selective in our new businesses. As I showed at the beginning of my presentation, the organic growth represented 2/3 of our development since 2014.
We wish to increase our development by external growth while continuing our organic growth, which is creative of value, and maintaining our geographic consistency. With improvement of the performance of the works and energy system lines of business, we have much more capacity to perform external growth of proximity in all of our target countries. In Europe, in the first half-year, we strengthen our presence in the Netherlands by increasing our share in Kropman and in acquiring a majority share in Harwig and last July in Eltra. Those acquisitions deliver an additional line of business and an intensification of the meshing of the territory for the energy system in the Netherlands. The acquisition of Seal makes it a solid base for the development of the energy system LOB in Switzerland. We remain attentive to the opportunity of external growth in Germany, in Belgium, and in Spain.
In France, always in the energy system LOB, we acquired Hydro-tech Services in Haute-Loire, strengthening our capacity of maintenance exploitation of hydroelectric power, and SRTC in Centre Loire, specializing in video protection and video monitoring, and Sotecf lu in Occitanie, contributing to the meshing of the territory. Beyond those external growth of proximity, we are in capacity to integrate more important companies. For instance, we signed an agreement so as to acquire 70% of SNEF Telecom, national player of reference on the French market of telecommunication, mobile technology. 1,000 employees over the territory, revenue of EUR 200 million in 2021. This acquisition enables Eiffage Énergie Systèmes to enter into the strong growth market of mobile telecommunication, borne by the development of 5G technologies for the public at large, but also and mainly for our industrial clients.
Implementation of this acquisition should take place in the second half of 2022, given the suspensive conditions and the usual regulation. As said previously, we just announced that we started exclusive negotiation to acquire over 80% of the Sun'R Group, actor of the solar farm business in France. Developer and producer of renewable solar electricity since 2007. The group is also a pioneer of agrivoltaics, combining development of agriculture and production of electricity, solar farm electricity, and offering a large list of service from storing electricity to optimization of the energy flows. You see what Sun'Agri can do. Sun'R develops three entities. Sun'R Power, developer and producer of independent electricity with a portfolio of over 100 MW in exploitation and 300 MW in development.
Sun'Agri, leader of agrivoltaics, designing and implementation smart infrastructure for the agriculture with 210 hectares, that is 150 MW in development. Volterres, provider of electricity in short circuit, transparent with 600 GW delivered in 2022 on 10,000 sites and 40 powerhouses. This acquisition that should be finalized at the second half should enable us to speed up with those 120 employees our development in the renewable energies. Following this, vision of what's happened in the half of the year, let's get back to the major figures. Revenues an increase of 8.6% compared to the first half of 2021. Now, Works and Concession are at a level of activity above the one before the crisis. Operational result and net result of over 36%, increasing over 36%.
Variation of WCR contained, enabling us to have a neutral cash flow in spite of the seasonality of our businesses. The order book remains at a high level, thanks to the dynamic of our goodwill. This first half year confirms our perspectives for 2022 on the growth of activity in works more sustained in concessions. We anticipate an increase of our results in works as well as in concessions. The results of works overshot those of 2019 since 2021. The outcomes of Concessions are also expected above the results of 2019. Our financial means are significant. I remain confident in our capacity, in our teams to carry on and speed up the development of the group in organic growth and in external growth. Thank you for your attention, and I invite Christian to give you a detailed explanation of our financial elements.
Hello, everyone. Good evening. Now we'll look back at some of the numbers mentioned by Benoît, and we'll look closely at 2022. Consolidated revenues is experiencing substantial growth at 8.6%, mainly organic. Two outstanding elements here, as well the return of the Concessions to a higher level than 2019 and quite substantial, much higher than 2021 at the +21.3%, where the first half year was impacted by the shutting down of the ski resorts on our motorway. Works growth sustained in the extension of the momentum that we saw in 2021. Regarding works, we'll see more detail of each trend in each brand, the trends in each brand.
If you look at the geographic zone here on the right, you can see that the trend observed in 2021 of a strong momentum of our installations in Europe is continuing, +21.8% in Europe. This trend this year is also being supported by two operations in the export mode. HS2 in the UK under production, in full production and less so, but the starting up of the E18 motorway in Norway. In France, activity is impacted by the start of a lesser contribution of major projects. This was anticipated though, following the Grand Paris Express, and this will actually pick up its pace in the second half of the year. Operational results, recurring operating income is high on an increase due to contribution of Concessions in 2021.
Contribution of works is more modest. With the margin at 1.7%. That's unrepresentative though, as always, at this stage of the year, compared to a full year. The consolidated operating margin of 9.8% compared to 7.8% in 2021, 9.8% was the same in 2019. If we look at each branch, looking at construction, revenues are on the upswing, as you can see here. The figures are up here in France and Europe, also outside of France. What you don't see there is real estate, and that's up by 7.5%.
That's related to commercial activity and bookings of the first two to three years back, which means that the figure is off compared to the drop in bookings over the first half. That's at 31%. The number seems a bit severe when you compare the first half 2019. We had 500 lots in Poland, so the drop in France is 15%, and that's in line with the market trend. The real estate contribution to the branch results is at EUR 33 million to the operating income. Now if we look at works.
We're renewing our order book by compensating the drop in residential by operational industrial operations, public works, hospital, train stations, Greater Paris Express and service areas by renovating or reconfiguring buildings. Our margins are maintained in France and Belgium, suffering more so though in Switzerland than in Poland due to inflation, which is much higher than here. Some illustrations here to show you that we won a contract to renovate 1000 dojos. These are either by municipalities or social landlords. France Judo for 2024, there are some 300 projects that are being finalized, and they're in rural areas and also in low-income neighborhoods.
Looking at infrastructure, the drop in activity in France is due to the beginning of the end of the Grand Paris Express construction site. That generated some EUR 306 million in the first half and EUR 376 million last year, and at the end of the wind park project at Saint-Nazaire. Activity in Germany is still sustained, and that explains that the growth rate is exceptional abroad in Europe and outside of France. It's both these two European construction sites and that I mentioned earlier, so that's in export. Margins in the road and civil engineering have been impacted by the seasonality of these business lines, as per usual, with some particularities this year that related to inflation.
A prudent approach at this stage in roads in France as regards revision of indexes and amounts regarding private markets. In Germany, the public markets were flat rate based and there was the government directive inviting customers to revise the prices, and that's not been applied unanimously. There's some pressure on our margins. We are confident, though, that we will get fair compensation for these despite inflation. The projects, big projects in France are moving forward compliant with our planning and compliant with our plan, our budget. August 2022, this is the shifting of the footbridge over the A1 motorway connecting the Olympic water park and the Stade de France, the French stadium. It's 350 tons, 100 meters long and 20 meters wide.
As regards energy systems, this is where we're seeing the highest growth. Thanks to the momentum of this market, over 6%, nearly 6%, sorry, growth that's organic, reinforced by the external growth, 3.4% due to acquisitions here. Multiple acquisitions here with small size acquisitions. The highest unit contribution there is EUR 16 million first half year in revenues. Integration of these companies is going well, so the acquisitions will continue. An increase in our activity in France is more limited than abroad, with a few large projects in the design phase, mobilizing resources and generating limited revenues at this stage. We're selective as regards these operations, and we're continuing our development in Europe outside of France with growth rates that are in double digits in Spain, Belgium, Netherlands and Germany.
You can see that our margin is stable over a couple of months, but following a substantial increase last year. We're consolidating those margins this year. The increase to the contribution to the results will increase in absolute value due to the volume of activity. An illustration here is a complex project here in Orléans. There's a conference center where there's an exhibition center, an arena of 10,000 people, and now we have the energy, the electric and CVC for the whole complex and APRR affected concessions, APRR and traffic. We're all familiar with this. It's much higher than. Slightly higher than its level of 2019. Much higher than 2021, where the first half was impacted by low traffic, which enables us to get back in terms to normal in terms of results higher than 2019.
If you look at the margins, you have to keep in mind the consolidation of 2021. We had Fulli managing services for our rest areas, and that's increased. That had an impact on our EBITDA. Still higher than the previous years. The outstanding point here is the acquisition of A'liénor, and the commissioning of partial service of the free-flow motorway in A79. APRR are working with them. APRR has been with them from the beginning, so you're accelerating your investment in modernizing, in the ecological, environmental modernizing of our networks, as Benoît showed us on the screen. We talked about this in February, and it's to be validated by the Council of State and for the investment plan. Here, this is sport. Had sport. In fact, these are not our ultra or high-power charging stations, right?
This is the type of events, or activities that we have on our motorway rest areas. Please do think about stopping by and taking a break. Now, as we look at our concessions, assets, we can have a more detailed presentation here. All of the motorways are experiencing the same momentum. If we look at the airports, they're back up on par. Prior to the crisis, we saw a gradual recovery. May, June, about 80% of traffic, compared to 2019. For these other segments, the two outstanding facts are the reinforcing of renewables has been addressed, and a strong mobilization of our teams in the CéGELog project, working with Eiffage Construction. Our final illustration here is the most recent delivery, and this was on the screen a moment ago. This is a PPP. It's in,
It's a water park. Five pools in Maurepas with and this should be opening the 8th of September, so I have two sessions and long-term contract taking us all the way into 2044. Looking at the financial situation at the accounts and won't dwell on the first two lines, but if we look at the other products and operational expenditures, we have EUR 20 million. We have an increase there because in this figure we had 2021, we had the goodwill, we had the capital gains of the divestiture of the services building in the Pierre-Mauroy. The cost of debt is increasing, and moderately, you can see, by EUR 6 million, of which 9 million in concession, mainly related to the cost of the debt for the Millau Viaduct. That's indexed to inflation.
We have that in an annex on page 52. The effective tax rate is at 26.3%, close to corporate tax in France of 25.8%, and we will likely have a bit higher level in the full year. This gives us a net income, operating income of EUR 354 million, 36% increase. As you can see, you have the debt in our table here with the financial flows. You're familiar with this. You can see at the bottom, 2022 EBITDA is much higher than 2021 at +EUR 223 million. That's quite substantial. It's also much higher than 2019 by EUR 172 million. Seasonal variation in our working capital requirements has been mentioned already, but you can increase over two typical.
Atypical years, 2021 and 2020, but it's still lower than 2019. If we look closely at works, it's EUR 540 million, and that's consistent with the level of the variation before the crisis, which was EUR 500 million in 2019 for less activity. It's good performance when you remember that in full years, 2020, 2021, our WCR had reduced in absolute values by EUR 500 million.
Taxes paid is logically higher than at the previous year, which brings us to cash flow from operating activities, EUR 600 million, equivalent to net investment, free cash flow at zero, which means whereas traditionally it was negative in the first half, with the exception of 2021, with the variation of the WCR, which brought us close to zero. Our investment, you'll see there's a consistency in the works over the two years, and concessions. Concessions, that includes 171 million on A79, compared to 128 last year. That's a growth investment and not renewal, even though it's positioned here as renewal. Then external growth in energy. Benoît mentioned that in France and the Netherlands in energy systems. Then finally, capital operations.
There are four components here in this last figure. Dividends paid out by APRR to their minority shareholder. Dividends paid by Eiffage to the shareholders. The increase in capital reserve for salaries, and then the buyback of those shares to cancel, to offset the equivalent of the shares created for that capital increase. One detail here, when you compare to 2021, these titles, these shares last year were bought in July and August mainly. That's important to keep that in mind when you compare the group's debt between June 2021 and 2022. All of this then to look at consolidated debt, which is a bit under EUR 10 billion in a full period. If we come back to the comparison of debt.
On the increase over six months, of course, but then on the downturn over 12 months, sorry, of EUR 245 million, with net treasury available to the holding in the overall, in the works branch of EUR 775 million, and an increase of EUR 220 million over the 12 months. If you look at the divestiture by APRR of the A79 operations of external growth that we carried out that bring in EUR 350 million if you take June to June, and that's the acquisition of the minority shareholders of EUR 65 million, and then the buyback of the shares that I just mentioned, the common shares.
Beyond the figures of increase of treasury here, you can see the figures such as, I guess, say you have those on page 47, EUR 4.8 billion. What's important, that's important to kick off a period that could be unstable. Another essential consideration for the current situation is our order book. Our order book, the level and the quality of our order book is very high, EUR 18 billion.
On the upswing, as you can see on the right, as you can see in each branch, including infrastructures, which consumed a lot of the order book in big projects in the Grand Paris Express, A79, and HS2, which will likely be on the downturn for the full year before ultimately going back up when we have the additional GPE, Grand Paris Express that will be coming in, and those are currently under bid. The order book is increasing and energy systems is quite spectacularly sustained growth for the semester, the half years to come up. The order book has been addressed in the same conditions of using the same selective nature we have in the past, but this year looking very specifically at the contractual clauses regarding inflation.
That's it for the overview of their figures, and I'm sure we'll come back on some of those. We'll take your questions, first of all, in the room, and then we'll take online questions. Benoît and I will have a seat, we'll take online questions, hopefully for the last time, because we'll be all meeting face-to-face next time, and hopefully, health conditions will allow that. Thank you for your attention.
Merci. Bonjour. In fact, Hi. I have two questions, mostly on A79 and the margins in the works for Eiffage Construction and Eiffage Infrastructures. On the A79, do you confirm that it is consolidated in overall integration? Could we have some opening on maybe some prediction of the traffic on the medium term on the road, maybe some revenues there?
The works margins, what percentage of the FNR contracts, and what enables you to maintain your margins intact there in the first half, despite likely drop in the margins on the road in general?
Yes. A79 will be an integrated construction. There are no issues there. The works that we carried out, we did those alone, 100%. Of course, using local and other businesses, but we manage all this. We don't communicate our margins per operation, but we can say we weren't off plan. The construction was carried out in synergy with the groups of businesses, compliant with what we had planned for in the study phase. No worries, no particular worries there, no problems.
They're at the end of the construction or the commissioning. We are on track, and they should be put into service as planned. Presently, the construction of the A79 has been carried out under traffic with lots of detours to maintain the traffic. Of course, we're at the end of that phase right now, so we don't yet have that information. Overall, we are expecting the traffic that we had initially. There are no difficulties anticipated. As I said, A79 is essentially used by tractor-trailers and heavyweight trucks.
Yes, there were some detours, of course, because there was a lot of construction, a lot of roadworks going on there, but we knew what the traffic was at the time when we started our work, so there's really no reason. There have been no particular changes in the landscape that would justify, that would give us any reason to not recover that same traffic we had historically. I think we'll know more, though, as soon as we get the annual results in a few months because it will be opening up in the second half. We've already got substantial traffic there. Right now, it's just partial opening, though. I'm sorry, I can't hear that question. Can we hope for improvement in 2022 over 2021? We can't hear the question. Sorry, I can't hear the question.
Oh, looking at current conditions, supplies, and that which are more difficult, say, than last year, but the contracts that are renewable or not renewable. Well, there's no real fundamental change, if I speak generically, and then we could look at each of the branches. My people here in the front row would be happy to answer your question there. I think overall the environment is extremely unstable. We're going through this with very little difficulty. You can see the results, I think, demonstrate that. If you remember what you said before, I think COVID helped us to, as it were, get better, to prepare better with inflation. There were a lot of difficulties to make sure that materials would arrive at the right time, at the right place, a lot of logistics issues.
I think that most of the teams went back to their fundamentals. You know, in our business line, fundamentals are preparing, anticipating. You buy things earlier, you store more, because that's the best way to make sure that you don't have any impact by the instability. We have to admit that the works are continuing. We managed to maintain some of the mechanics are the same. If you look at France, the public side of things, we've got indices that show what our resilience has been over a really long time.
If we look at energy systems, we've got contract durations that are short, so there's momentum there that, with all of the framework agreements that are set up with our procurement divisions, have the ability to keep our prices up to date as immediately as possible. We have new bids, we submit new bids, and we've adjusted the prices in real time and as they should be. If you look at construction, we've got private customers, private clients, sometimes flat rates, fixed rates over longer terms. Remember, these issues, the issue of inflation and the risks related to inflation, before they actually materialize, we were talking about them. I think that even in a quarterly memo, we clearly explain things.
This phase means that we're wary of them, we're ready, but we take it into account in our price studies and take it into account. The current environment means that we're already in discussions with a private customer. There's some things we've had to redefine. It happens on an individual basis, and things are going okay, you know. In the short term, the real issue is maintaining our margins before thinking about they could naturally grow. The environment is such that there is risk that's quite substantial, and so it's more about maintaining the margin. Now, in other countries, we talked about it, and Christian mentioned Germany. We're hoping we have a lot riding on the government directives coming out.
But that's not the case for new contracts because the decision was taken, and any public German contracts are defined, like the Spanish contracts as well. The Spanish directive could also maybe revamp or overhaul even older contracts where we had felt the effects of inflation. They're discussing what's taking place right now. Germany's a bit more nonuniform. We're hoping to get proper compensation for that. Over the half year, you're wondering why the margins are stable, whereas the road is deteriorating. I think the deterioration in the road is marginal compared to 2021. We would like it to be more like 2029, which is better than 2021. In 2021, it slightly deteriorated, but not that much.
There's nothing really that will significantly impact the profitability of the branch, compared to what it was in 2021. One of the more complicated topics is constant revenues. We have lesser industrial volumes because the public clients, they have a watchful eye on their budget. That's what has the intrinsic impact. Meaning for the same revenues, there are fewer tons. Because these businesses, the business lines of road, there's a profitability which comes from our industries, where we have industry volume that's lower now, even though we have a constant revenue. We're hopeful that the public clients have needs and volume will make its way into our order books.
Okay, budgets are being reviewed and revised, but right now we are benefiting from the indices, but we are losing volumes in terms of material and actual activities at constant revenues. I think that's the most impactful element in the short term regarding road.
I think you were crystal clear on the issue. On the markets, firm markets, we're fighting for the past quarter with the customers to stop this non-revision clauses, a cautious appreciation of the income. We're in discussion with many private markets where we successfully overcame this clause. Public markets that were not revised, with which we discuss with the customers, they're important discussion. On the part revenues, what Benoît says, currently, we look at the revenues were up +4.9%. Let's not remember that there's an inflation effect, and beneath there is a volume effect. Our industries today, as of end of June, are in decreasing. Not in a disastrous way, but they're diminishing compared to last year. On the quarries and on the coating, and this impacts the results of the half year.
Since we're about the margins, we talked about the works. Can we say a few words to start with about the margins on energy that remains stable, 4%? The order book is increasing, good oriented activity. We have seen that some of your peers successfully increased the margins in the first half. How will you be able to increase the margins and reach the 5% mark or beyond on energy? That's my first question. Second question about the works that you alluded to, the property. For the time being, you were not impacted at the half year on the one. What can we expect at the second half and in 2023? Can you remind us the contribution of property and works? On concessions, can you give us the traffic trends of this summer?
We all have in mind that there is a strong increase of the tariffs to come in 2023. What is your position on that? Do you discuss a X Cap plan with the government? What is your vision about that? Is there a possible extension of the concessions? We heard about the plan you suggested. Can you say a few words or elaborate on that?
More on the first part about the energy system. 4% is compared at the same level as margin as last year. Our basic interest remains not to be impacted by the inflation, and we do not intend to be at 4% on the full year, if it's your question. Your neighbor here, seated here, didn't say that. I think that it's a work that took a certain amount of years. Yes, we're on the consolidation about the margins.
We're aware of the fact that we'll be able to consolidate them. By external growth, we increase the volumes. I always explain to you that in order to have the coverage of the territory, you have a lot of expenses, which are a certain element. When you are larger, it helps you on a better coverage of the general expenses. 5%, it's not a magic word, you know, it's the inflation that we endure. If we maintain this level of margin, it will prove that we have progressed, because the environment is totally different compared to last year. I'm totally confident in Ludovic and his teams to progress beyond 5%. I mean above 5%. Above 5%, obviously. Correction.
Hello. Benoît said it all. We remain confident about the landing at the end of the year.
We're at the intermediary level for the time being. We have a level of margin risk comparable to the rest of the sector. We have structures that are above those margins, some beyond. We're working on that to reduce the gap between the veteran class and the not so veteran class. This is on what we try to act to comfort our margins. The environment is as it is today, and we have to work to reach the 5%, which is the target set a few years ago already. On the property market.
Yeah, Olivier. The property works, 15% of our revenues, it is unavoidable that the share of the property in France will decrease. Because when you do -15%, -20%, but that's the market. Well, in the future, it's our revenue that will decrease 15%, 20%.
It's gonna be 2024, 2025, not earlier. No impact on 2022, nor on 2023. To offset that, we have nice treasury operations underway in the pipes and nice operations of housing in the Benelux and in Poland, which we didn't have in the previous years. Globally speaking, I think our property activity should not decrease. Even if it would, our model, we have very light structures. It will not impact the profitability. Philippe, some information about traffic?
Hello. I noticed your three questions. First, about the traffic of the summer. Following a first semester of growth of 3% compared to 2019, which remains our reference year before the crisis. We enjoyed a nice summer with a July and August that should conclude by +4% above those of the first semester. August, slightly less. So far for the traffic.
Second question about the tariffs. Indeed, the increases in contract for 2023 are linked to the inflation. Inflation is at risk of being very high at the end of October. It's our reference index. We're at 6.2% end of July, 5.8% in August. It will be very high at the end of October. Our Transport Minister, Clément Beaune, expressed himself several times about that, hoping for a moderation of the tariffs in 2023. We started negotiation that will go on in the coming days and weeks to see how this moderation will be operated in respect of the balance of the contract, economic balance of the contract. Regarding the investment plans, we have to start from the investment plan that Christian mentioned earlier. Investment plan of EUR 410 million on which we've been working for almost two years.
This plan is almost finalized, on the way of finalization. It has to be validated by the Council of State, Conseil d'État, meaning a signature of the rider in October. The important point is that this plan of investment represents a show window, what could be deployed at a larger extent within the large plan of investment of ecological, environmental transition, with three components of this plan, EUR 400 million. One, investment for the new mobilities, carpooling, multimodal, transfers, implementation of the free flow at the entrance of large portion of the AREA concession, the legacy concession. Suppression of the tolls in full road. We can extend this model or this process on the whole of our motorway network with APRR and all through the territory.
Third part, a backward integration like on section of the A6 between Saint-Germain-en-Laye and Évry, a section of the motorway where we will refurbish the equipment. An example of what could be practiced at a larger scale within the framework of the law of decentralization of the national road network. We could integrate urban sections in extension of our networks with additional investments for the environmental transition. On those issues about large investment plan, we are on an extended timeframe. Negotiation is very long, then the validation process, which is taking time. If the extension of the concession, you have to have the say of the government, the European Commission, ART, and the Council of State, so it's very long processes. One could think that the negotiation will start next year, not before. Not before February 2023, in any case.
Thank you, Philippe.
Hello, Virginie Rousseau, ODDO BHF. I'd like to get back to the acquisition of Sun'R. Can you say a bit more, give some figures, and talk about the strategy? Is it the beginning of a new line of business? I had a question also about the impact of inflation. You mentioned the impact on the volumes on the road. What about the major project of infrastructure? Will inflation have an impact on the demand? We haven't seen it. The order book has increased for the time being, but do you anticipate that this inflation could have an impact on the demand in the coming months?
I'll leave the floor to Cécile.
Good evening. Regarding our strategy in the Concession ENR, we focused on two areas of activity. Solar farm mainly, and set targets on the renewables.
We have the opportunity to meet the Sun'R company, and it was an opportunity of a meeting between two industrialists with a lot of synergies. And we will not give figures yet because discussions are in the pipeline and not finalized. We'll say more in February. We wish to become a European player of the sun farms.
What I could add as an addition is that we took part in two or three auctions on French and Spanish actors or players. We had the occasion once to align ourselves because we were well considered, and we didn't think the price was worth it. The company was acquired by an oil producer, and we lost also the second bid with an oil company.
It taught us a lot about the upstream business of energy, the maturity of development, the way of developing those things. Cécile and her teams did a global search of all the players in the market. Sun'R, with its very innovative capacities with agrivoltaics, there is a conflict of use between agriculture and the sun farms. It was very interesting. Cécile summarized it well. This was the history of a meeting, and all went smooth until the signing today. We have a certain amount of previous conditions, but it's very well. We had a dozen of people working on this topic with our motorways, our processes and works, numerous ones. All the requests of a certain amount of players who wanted to get to our property.
We have people who are quite innovative here, and from 10 we moved to 130. It's on the same scale. We are very, very happy about this meeting since, as Cécile said, it's gonna become the development platform for the group, and the founder remains with us as a minority shareholder. We have all the elements to speed up.
The second more general question is about the impact of inflation on demand. If I should summarize, we don't see it. If we take the industrial clients, they are refocusing on their investments, and in fact, they are selecting them, sorting them, and when they have the need, I could work it on the other way around. The legacy budget is not a border anymore. Since with inflation, everything has to be revised. Sometimes we fight against budgets in more classical environments.
I think it's rather I revisit the needs, the investments, those some which are critical that will do, but I'm not sure tomorrow they're gonna be cheaper. Conversely, it liberates, and there is a very strong activity, and the will is to go faster. This is on the private clients. Once they have done what is critical, it will peak out. About the public customer, there's a real will of recovery. It takes some time, of course. The French government was one of the most active on the capacity to grab the recovery European plan. We see that in Germany, in Spain, in Belgium. The public side for the infrastructure, for the critical infrastructures, we don't see a decrease of the demand today. The work which is most impacted is the road.
We talked about it, because eventually, it's easy to postpone the road maintenance. It has an impact on the volumes, but no significant decrease. The job suffering the most is this inflation, it's the building, of course. All the effect. No strong evolution of the output prices. As a promoter, you're impacted by the inflation, uncertainty of the duration of inflation. Our integrated model of a promoter builder is resilient because the teams know that the project will not start as long as we didn't find the right balance in all the lines of businesses composing it. This is a very resilient way to protect our margins. We will not have the same volumes, obviously.
Do you wish to say something different, Guillaume?
Yes, one additional word. I think we discuss with the builders.
It's driven by political demands and choices. We can discuss inflation with the public for the people. Is this consistent with the inflation indexes? Those are the questions which are asked. That's what the contractors tell us. We'll discuss in annual budgets, but this is also the case with the roads and the civil engineering. Those are the elements of answer regarding your question. In terms of major infrastructure projects, there's no questioning of the program of the Grand Paris Express. The major allocation, we always eventually delivered part of them, but as we're going in the year and a half to come. There's no will to alter the project. The Toulouse underground, all the tenders were disclosed. You have a certain amount of relays of massive infrastructures.
If I'm talking about the property, the CHU of health, I can tell you that those investments are massive, which is already a problem in the capacity of answering to the demand since the amount of teams able to do, it's not Eiffage, it's the market, able to come up with EUR 20 million, EUR 40 million, EUR 60 million of technical works. I mean, there's not that many people able to do so. Those are things that were launched by the recovery plans. We don't have the feeling that the inflation is hampering this demand. Europe, which is our ground, we see those dynamics everywhere. The most important worry is mainly in Germany today. Beyond that, it's one of the country that has the most of the means to carry on.
Nabil El-Amra, Barclays. I have three questions, please. First, can you get back to the book of orders?
I haven't seen major project on the third quarter, so means there is a tremendous amount on the second quarter. What is happening in the energy system LOB? Second question about the employee inflation. Can you see it now? How do you manage it in the long run on several years projects? Index regulations are mostly on materials. What about the subcontractors? Can you have indexation clause taking into account this inflation into your contracts? How will you be able to manage the existing contracts signed two or three years ago without those mechanisms? Last question, more anecdotal about the A709. Can you remind us the rationale for Eiffage to make the building and then selling it to APRR?
Is this specific to this project, given the job, given the region, or more globally, can we look into this system so as to consider the capacity of gearing of APRR?
The answer is in your question, Nabil. A709 is an extension of the network with APRR facing the tender, the bid. We, like at Eiffage and all of the LOBs, use all the levers in full capacity of decision and of functioning. Besides, we wish to enjoy the capacity of operator of APRR. So the mechanism enabling, if we win, we resell to APRR, was discussed with our co-shareholders from the onset, and we remained very flexible for the bid. In operation, we could put it up again. We have synergies of operation.
We enjoyed the knowledge of the ground, of the traffic, and all what is around, including what our ally knows. Obviously, the resale to APRR is a way to use the capacities of APRR today. If we are in the continuity of the network, we have the same mechanism today. On A412, it's not APRR, but it's AREA. We take the same, and we redo. When we are very far from the assets of APRR, an AREA where concessionaire, we can do it on our own. It's linked to this proximity. There was a true synergy that we used in terms of operation and interaction between the teams which were present locally and the contractor that worked there.
Well, the order book, we communicated on many topics. They're not mega topics, but they are nearly EUR 100 million. We've got a driver behind that, which is renewable energies. The production unit there of renewable energies is what is one of the reasons that explain the higher growth in Europe than in France, because one of our two drivers is for wind power that's in Belgium. Photovoltaic is also outside of France. We communicated on that, but our customers haven't wanted us to communicate on the volumes. You have the amount of steel and so on and so forth, but you don't have the amounts of. You can take the benchmarks, and you can look at that, and you can see they're quite substantial. Same holds for solar panels, so photovoltaic in Spain.
We've got a lot of orders that have come from there. They're quite substantial. In building, there are a lot of topics that maybe have gone under the radar between EUR 20 million-EUR 50 million in the hospital area. Train stations, we talked about that. Industrial area as well. In addition to the projects mentioned by Benoît, we have topics in pharma, in Occitanie, paper pulp in the East. Some more modest-sized projects that are in the order books. In terms of energy, we also have the Grand Paris Express, that's outside the daily activities and the various contracts that we've mentioned. We have Eiffage Énergie Systèmes, it's integrated in the technical and the HVAC, and, as Benoît mentioned, in synergy with Eiffage Construction.
This whole host of elements that give us an order book that is quite substantial. Of course, in the order book, there is a bit of inflation because we look at price levels today that are not what we had about a year ago. For me, inflation as regards pay, salary inflation, I really don't distinguish between salary inflation and any other inflation. When we look at the indices, when we have indexed contracts, there's part of it's already including the salary in the annex there, in the appendix. There's no real distinction, no fundamental distinction. Our indexation formulas, because Spain, Germany, France, Belgium have their part of that. That's directly indexed to labor costs, and that includes the employee salaries at the index.
Of course, everything that's related to our flat rate or fixed rate contracts and others like that. As just like the other elements, of course, in our pricing, we look at average hourly costs that are already prefigured, that already anticipate increase in salary and pay due to inflation to be able to be maintained over time. In fact, I might say that when we carry out costing analyses, we have a dual approach. One is where we ask our subcontractors to provide a certain part of the contract. We also have an approach where we break out part of it, and we can separate our purchasing and our labor costs.
When we have the labor costs in our budget approach, looking at the subcontractor compared to our subcontractor bids, our teams are able to have the labor content that they're expecting from the subcontractors. It actually looks good because our framework agreements enable us to secure equipment costs and that which will be better prices, right, which will be better, and that way we can manage it more true to fact. Subcontractors give you a very good price, and then when you ask them to get started, they say, well, actually, they got the price wrong and they get the cost quote wrong. We do a separate costing approach, looking at materials, productivity and hours. There's no difference in the approaches.
For some contractors, say, that are more structured, we can get our index of formulas to be integrated in their costing. All that on the many public contracts that are paid directly, where they directly get their payment from the government, then we can just use the same indices. On the very smaller ones, there's no point in trying to secure them a year ahead of time. We just don't know. That's a risk that we have to carry based on our budget approach. Until the time we give them the order to execute just before the kickoff of the work. For me, there's no real difference. There's no fundamental difference there compared to other topics that are similar.
It is an important element to be monitored to make sure that we are able to ensure the proper development of the indices and make sure that we have the right teams in place on our work sites. Okay. Now we'll take the online questions. How about star one zero for the phone. First question from Stéphanie D'Ath from HSBC. Go ahead.
Hello. Three questions, if you would, please. First one, I would like to sum up what you said, if I just make sure I understood the investment plan, EUR 400 million, which is to be signed in October, and discussions on the rates, it would be up due to inflation, the beginning of the year will be discussed in the upcoming weeks. So a bigger CapEx plan basically on hold until 2023.
Is that correct? France, Europe, does that hold also for the other plans? Then my second question is on airports. You have operating results of under EUR 10 million and EUR 16 million of goodwill amortization, and you have Toulouse and other areas. What are you expecting? When are you expecting that to come back into the black, what acquisitions are planned in that area? You've made lots of acquisitions. Are you considering acquisitions here?
Third question is back to works margins, 34% or 4%. I'm not sure if that was for the full year. You're hoping to get the 4%, so 4% operating margins, which is what you said for 2021. Okay, the third one on works. I did say 4% over the long term, and I can...
I'll let you decide what the long term is, but what I wanted to say and what I meant by that is there's no reason to not get back to. If I take our three large branches, in construction, we were able to reach 4% in margins, so there's no reason to not get back to those same levels. We also intend to be about 5% in energies and regarding infrastructure between 3%-4%, 3.5 makes perfect sense. If you take the combination of all of that, then there's no reason that we shouldn't be able to get beyond 4% over the long term in margins in works. Now, your first question on investment plan. No, you weren't wrong. You did interpret that correctly.
That's what Philippe explained, the EUR 400 million plan that should be implemented or kicked off as of October this year. Discussions on a more massive plan. Okay, we don't imagine those prior to 2023, and that would then require all of the authorizations and keeping in mind Parliament and the European Commission, ART, the regulator and the Council of State. As regards to EUR 400 million plan, the regulatory side has been done already, and we only have one left stage left to do, get through, and that's the Council of State. Now, looking at the airports per asset, we do not give figures, but Toulouse has been published, so you'll know what those are. But if we separate those two, we're already positive because we don't have any goodwill amortization. It's just symbolic. We're positive as regards to current traffic.
If we look at the Toulouse airports, where the results are per airport operational, we're positive, minus EUR 16 million in goodwill amortization, so that gives us minus EUR 10 million. So EUR 6 million per airport. That's following amortization of the infrastructure itself and not the goodwill, but we're at about EUR 25 million in amortization, so about EUR 12 million per half year. There's already EBITDA generation. There's a drop in a reduction of the debt, so substantial traffic without implementing or bringing the results to zero. We won't be there this year, but however, it is achievable with a little help, a little increase in traffic over current traffic.
It's obvious that we will, once we've relatively well addressed the OpEx, CapEx in the difficult years, 2021, well, we should continue to invest and then close those parentheses there logically. Now as regards to your question on potential development, potential growth, we are looking at Concessions only in our own installations in Europe. Today, in the short term, there are not a lot of assets or potential projects in the airports. The only one that could possibly be discussed would be Beauvais, and that's under the reservation of detailed due diligence analysis of the traffic and the long-term development with the regulatory changes that we know in the air industry. Okay. Another question comes from Louis Pialat from Kepler Cheuvreux. Go ahead.
Good afternoon. Thanks a lot for taking my questions. I have two of them, if I could. The first one is, in light of your move on Sun'R, should we expect Eiffage to carry out further acquisitions in the renewables space, or would growth be organic using this company as sole development platform? In this respect, should your entry in renewables broaden your international footprint, or should we expect you to remain focused in this field in your current core European markets? My second question is, correct me if I'm wrong, I think working capital consumption was EUR 93 million larger in H1 this year versus the H1 of last year. There's been a bit of a sort of increased marginal consumption. What should we expect for the second half of the year?
Is it fair to assume that there should be an unwinding of the working capital gains over the 2021-2022 period to some extent? Thank you very much.
I'll answer on the last point regarding the gap 2021-2022 with ex-issue limited. It's difficult to make extrapolation of variation of needs of BFR during the year. At WCR, it's gonna be neutral, but this is the high-level assumption because it means we shall keep the working cap of EUR 550 million. We should anticipate a lower exit of cash, and we'll see. It's a major work, a major part of the works to maintain this level of cash at low seasonality, seasonal levels. Within this figure, we have a lot of contradictory effects. The offshore made us normal advances when we start this kind of contract. When there's an intervention of the payment of third parties, we have a shortening of the payment delays.
We have inventories which are more important and significant about the need of WCR. We have less subcontracting, less operations and procurement in building and property. In the mix, this is producing the figure that you alluded to. So stable, no variation, which is the top variation and little variation of the working capital at the end of the year. So stay tuned, as they say. To get back to the strategy of the acquisition, as Benoît said earlier, we looked into some possibilities of acquisition. Over the last year, we answered two bids. We would try to work on a one-to-one negotiation. This is going to become our development platform for the Sun'R and production of electricity. The integration of Sun'R and of the teams in the group. We'll see for the next acquisitions later.
Are there any other questions here or there? UBS, Gregor Kuglitsch.
Hello. Can you hear me?
Yes.
Hello?
Yes, please. Go ahead.
Thank you. I just have a few questions, please. The first one is on your margin comment for this year. Are you, just to be clear what you're saying, are you saying you think you will hold margin this year, or do you think you can improve it a little bit? You've guided, secondly, for contracting revenues to kind of decline because some of the sort of larger works at Grand Paris are unwinding. Can you give us sort of a quantum, what you expect versus the 6% growth you just posted in the first half, sort of on contracting? The third question is on your sort of attitude towards the tariff discussion. I think you were alluding to potentially kind of, you know, being flexible around the increase for next year.
Do you think this would be simply a postponement over time, or would you look to see this being compensated through an extension? Or are you sort of, indifferent between the two? Thank you.
Nice one, about your first question about the margins. The first focus is to make sure that in this environment, we'll be able to maintain the margins we obtained last year. But it is possible in one LOB or another to have a slight improvement, but basically, it's first and foremost to have a minimum the performance we had on the full year last year. About the revenues. The decrease of the amount of projects of Grand Paris will have a lesser growth on this branch in the second half, but will remain the same trends. For the contracting in its whole, a lesser trend as the growth of the first half year with a little bit of inflation, we can be on the same levels of trends. Of course, due to the inflation. Philippe, some additions?
Oh, it's gonna be quick.
We're at the state of preliminary discussions. Negotiation will start in September. We can't say more now about the solution that will be reached to mitigate the contractual increases of February.
Nicolas Mora, Morgan Stanley. You have the floor.
I just wanted to get back to the margin Eiffage Énergie Systèmes. It's a bit late. I don't understand the explanations about the stability of the margin and the caution that you put forward for the year. When we see the organic growth, we see limitation about the availability of the staff, a little bit of pricing power, good end market, a good backlog. Your competitors are also in the phase of increase of margin, higher increases in margin. Why? Why would you be less on a lesser extent in a very positive market? We have the M&A on Sun'R.
What about the rest of the smaller M&A Eiffage Énergie Systèmes, which remains out of the concessions, the key to earn a little bit of size? Do you have more important targets to come in the pipeline, or are you gonna be on pause for the group for the time being?
Look, about the margin, I think we expressed ourselves. We are compliant to what we did in the previous year. We aim at 5% in the current background. Good indices about the order book. We're in an inflation period. Question about the reining in of the costs, but our target is to do 5%. We can do more. Well, we'll do it. Regarding the external growth, as alluded to previously, for the time being, since January, we acquired six companies, three in France, three in the Netherlands.
For a full year, it will contribute to EUR 82 million of revenues, saying nothing about SNEF Telecom, which should deliver in full year EUR 200 million, additional EUR 200 million. About the strategy of external growth, as we alluded to, we have an organization which is now stable in France, in our regions, in the certain amount of European countries. It's from those structures that we try to come up with a proximity, external growth, looking for companies that will contribute to increase the offers in the value chain wherever we're stable. Now, it's recent. The exposure on the Equans makes it that we're more visible by the M&A players. In France, we have a more important player. We're very selective. We will not shy away. I mean, Germany, we have a humble penetration of the market. Maybe we'll acquire something more significant.
We remain watching out. Our target, our aim is to buy at the right price, and companies which are in line with our strategy and our lines of business, obviously. Just to make sure that there is no doubt, Nicolas, there's no reason not to be able to make 5%, to reach 5% like we did previously. We're coming from much far away, farther away than our competitors. It's this amount of years that in the continuous way we improved our margin. Given the current situation, there's no doubt that we should be able to get back again to the 5% of margin of the system branch. We have a difference compared to some of our competitors. We do more organic growth than others.
I think that organic growth, you can't make an omelet without breaking the eggs, you know. We have to have people to start something. It takes some years then, and then it's a new business unit of EUR 10-20 million of activity, and it costs us a few people. We didn't use part of our EBITDA. When we analyze our competitors, the path of growth coming from organic growth, which shouldn't be forgotten when you compare the various competitors. There are the best in class, which are very performing for some years and will go on, and we want to catch up with them. They are larger. It helps them. I see no reason that we should not go on in the long term to improve our performance. There's no notion about pausing about the external growth. No.
I said it in the past. We do external growth when you have a team of management at a given place which has reached the right performance. As Ludovic said previously, we have performance gaps here and there that have been reduced, which has. This was the driver for the improvement of the margins. There's no company now in France for external growth. In Netherlands, we acquired Kropman, we worked three or four years together. We know exactly what we want. We have the good elements, so we started to do external growth with Kropman, and we made two acquisitions this year. In Spain, we have management teams which are very performant. You see the organic growth that they have, it's complex for them to do external growth. In Belgium, we had several entities.
There was a major work performed by the teams to be able to unify the management of Belgium with a platform where they can grow externally. We don't have that in Germany, so it's something we're looking into, finding a stronger capacity to move on for external growth. So on the go, year after year, and improvement of profitability of the LOB. There's no place where we are unable to do local external growth or even more. As Ludovic said, all the work we performed on Equans helped us externally in terms of knowledge, of a will, of a value chain and i t federated the teams internally to have this pride of developing the group. Those two elements concur in step, and this is why we're confident, able to speed up and do more external growth in the years to come.
It is already the case this year. Any other question? Well, if there's no more questions, I'll thank you all for being here with us. For once, it's been a long time, we didn't do it, we'll be able to carry on the conversation with a glass in our hands.