EU accepts 'special treatment' to Spain to lower the price of electricity

Brussels, 25 Mar European Union leaders acknowledged at this Friday's summit that Spain and Portugal need “special treatment” to manage high electricity prices due to their low level of electricity interconnection with the rest of the bloc. “We have agreed on special treatment for the Iberian Peninsula so that they can manage this very specific situation in which they find themselves and manage energy prices,” said European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, after a meeting that lasted almost ten hours. German policy said that Spain and Portugal are in a “very special” situation because their energy mix has a high proportion of renewables, but “very few interconnections” with the rest of the countries of the Union. In this way, the Twenty-Seven agreed to one of the main demands with which the president of the Spanish Government, Pedro Sánchez, reached the meeting of the heads of state and government of the community capital, in which he met opposition from countries such as Germany, the Netherlands or the Nordic countries. However, Spain failed to get the text agreed by the Twenty-Seven to immediately authorize the introduction of gas price limits within the wholesale market, an option that remains on the table but will be assessed later. In particular, EU leaders entrust the European Commission with the task of investigating whether this measure and others such as providing state aid or reducing taxes will contribute to “reducing the price of gas and stopping its contagion effect, but “taking into account national circumstances”. “The Commission is ready to urgently assess the compatibility (with European standards) of temporary emergency measures in the electricity market notified by the Member States”, adds the text of the summit conclusions. In addition, Brussels guarantees that it will consider “with an urgent procedure” that the measures reduce prices in the electricity market in the spot for both companies and households and that they “do not affect commercial conditions in a way that is contrary to the common interest”. “In doing this analysis, the temporary nature of the measures and the level of interconnection with the single electricity market will be taken into account”, emphasizes the document, veilly reinforcing the need to take into account the energy uniqueness of the Iberian Peninsula. home/cat/pddp (More information about the European Union at euroefe.euractiv.es)