Mumbai: Suez and Gaz de France shareholders have overwhelmingly approved a long-delayed €100 billion ($159.5 billion) merger that will create Europe's second-largest electricity and gas group.

The GDF Suez group would be the largest gas supplier in Europe and would rank amongst the world's biggest electricity producers. It would account for combined sales valued at €74 billion, and would be ranked alongside Europe's second largest utility company, Germany's E.ON, just behind French power giant EDF.

Speaking to the media, Suez chief executive Gerard Mastrallet said that the shareholders have ''voted today by more than 99 per cent'', and that the vote was both a success and a challenge ''because we have to deliver now and this is our first priority.'' 99.6 per cent of the vote backed the merger.

Gaz de France, in which the French state has an 80-per cent stake, saw a backing by 99.9 per cent of its shareholders.

Ahead of the vote, at the final shareholder meeting of Suez, Mestrallet termed the merger as an opportunity to create a key energy player, while referring to commercial, industrial and geographical synergies between both companies. He said the merger would ''allow us to speed up our industrial development'' with the group choosing to focus on nuclear energy and offering gas and electricity combinations.

Gaz de France CEO Jean-Francois Cirelli told shareholders that the merger would provide GDF Suez with the financial muscle to develop its business, and help all of Europe reduce its dependence on imported gas.

Gaz de France and Suez are looking to develop their gas production business, and increase their electricity generation capacity to 100 gigawatts (GW) by 2013, up from the 65 GW currently, mainly through new nuclear power and renewable energy projects.

Mestrallet has indicated that GDF Suez could try to acquire one or two new-generation European pressurised reactors (EPR) in Britain. He said the company would decide at the beginning of 2009 whether to participate in the construction of a second EPR in France.

The shareholder approval brings to an end a two and a half year long saga of union roadblocks, political diversions, and delays and disputes over valuation and control. The final terms were laid out in September 2007, at 21 Gaz de France shares for 22 Suez shares, along with the spin-off of 65 per cent of Suez's water and waste arm.

The deal was launched by the French government in February 2006, in a bid to counter a hostile bid for Suez from Italy's Enel.