Sanchez returns from Brussels with the promise of putting a cap on the price of light

BrusselsThis Friday, the possibility of applying a cap on the price of electricity paid by Spanish citizens is closer. After almost ten hours of intense and complex meeting, the leaders of the European Union will allow governments such as the Spanish or the Portuguese to request urgent measures to lower the electricity bill, including limiting the price of the light. The argument of Spain and Portugal is that the Iberian Peninsula is an energy island, with a lack of interconnections that causes them a comparative grievance. And what the two governments have scratched afterwards is the recognition of this “Iberian singularity” in allowing them to take extraordinary measures.

“We have agreed on special treatment for the Iberian Peninsula so that it can manage energy prices,” said European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. The President of the Spanish Government, Pedro Sánchez, and the Portuguese Prime Minister, António Costa, have announced the agreement jointly with visible satisfaction. “It’s a big step forward,” Sanchez said. Next week, the two governments will present a joint plan, with the concrete proposal of the electricity price cap, and the European Commission will have to analyze it urgently. Sánchez did not want to specify what the top will be proposed by Spain and Portugal, but he did say that the compensation for the price “will not be with public money”. The Spanish president did not want to specify any details of this or other measures. Moncloa estimates that once the plan is presented, the measures will be able to be implemented within a month and through an accelerated process that does not need the approval of the other EU governments.

On the other hand, this Friday’s day in Brussels has been especially intense because the demands of Madrid and Lisbon were strongly opposed by states such as Germany or the Netherlands, absolutely skeptical of the possibility of adopting any joint measure involving European market intervention. Throughout the day, tensions have risen as much as prices have in recent weeks, to the point that the Spanish president has risen from the table on one occasion and forced a technical shutdown. “What happens in the Council remains in the Council,” Sanchez said later to avoid talking about the episode following the tweet of a journalist who claimed that Madrid was threatening to veto the global agreement. Moncloa, who always wants to maintain a close relationship with the institutions, flatly denies it.

The Iberian governments are leaving Brussels singing victory because the battle has been hard, especially with the German Chancellor, Olaf Scholz, who even congratulated them on the way out: “Pedro Sánchez has very successfully presented the interests of his Together with his Portuguese colleague, they have guaranteed that there are options for the Portuguese and Spanish governments to act, “he said, adding that” the proportion of renewable energy in the Iberian Peninsula is very high “.

But if Berlin calmly acknowledges the Spanish victory, it is because some of its red lines have not been crossed. The recognition of the Iberian singularity was in fact the plan B of Spain. Sanchez went on tour in Europe with the aim of achieving a profound reform of an electricity market that he considers outdated, “from the 90s,” he said. His first intentions were to set a common cap on the wholesale price of gas and even to decouple the price of gas from that of the electricity mix as a whole, an option he has already abandoned in the debate in Brussels. In addition, other countries such as Italy and France put on the table the option of creating a new common debt fund to pay the price offsets, an option that Madrid did not dislike either. The Spanish leader does not achieve these goals, but the Commission’s implicit commitment to surgical and temporary measures is being taken, while Brussels is waiting for expert advice to rule in May on a possible reorganization of the European electricity market. .

Sanchez’s crusade in Brussels to get measures to lower the electricity bill has been going on for months. The Spanish government was one of the first to place the debate in Europe and one of the first to make proposals such as the joint purchase of gas or the possibility of taxing the extraordinary benefits of electricity. Both proposals have now been sealed by other European leaders, who did not even anticipate it before the war broke out in Ukraine. And while Spain and Portugal are gaining special recognition, the European Union as a whole is committed to working to reduce its dependence on Russian gas, fill its reserves and prevent this situation from happening again in the future.