Sánchez announces a tour of Europe to gain support for his energy reform plan


  • The president will travel to several countries next week, both supporters of his proposal and some more reluctant, and achieve a review of the system

  • He warns that, with the PP and Vox government agreement in Castilla y León, Spanish democracy is reaching a “serious”, “critical” moment

Pedro Sánchez repeats the strategy of the summer of 2020. At that time, he traveled to various European capitals to defend the launch of a gigantic fund with which to inject resources into community partners to face their respective recovery plans after the pandemic. Now, and this was announced by the president this Friday, he will undertake a tour of several countries to try to obtain support for his proposal to reform the energy market that will reduce the price of electricity.

The journey will start next week, but all the stops have not yet been closed, so there is no detail of the route, as the Chief Executive told journalists at the end of the informal summit of European Union leaders in Versailles . Precisely one of the main issues discussed at this meeting, which will be followed by the formal European Council on March 24 and 25, was the energy issue, given the unstoppable rise in prices and the difficult disengagement of dependence on Russian hydrocarbons.

One possibility that the third vice president, Teresa Ribera, left on the table last Wednesday was to set limits on the price of electricity. She even pointed out that Spain could overtake the EU to that extent. Sánchez recalled that it was already “clear” in his last public appearances and before Congress, in the sense that his Executive “will do everything in his power” to defend the industry, SMEs and citizens, so that not be “hostages of energy blackmail” from Moscow. The Executive, she added, has already extended an “important package of tax rebates and suspensions” for the time being until June 2022 (VAT, electricity production tax…) and has extended protection for the most vulnerable consumers.

But right now, he insisted, his priority is for the EU to make “decisions” and adopt “measures” ahead of the European Council on March 24 and 25, since the situation is “an emergency”, “and it is much better” to do so. at European level. In this sense, he reiterated that it is necessary to review the design of price formation in the wholesale market, because it does not withstand the “stress” of the rise in gas prices for months, and even more so after the Russian invasion in Ukraine. This analysis, he observed, explains the tour of “different European countries” to speak with their leaders and “join together a proposal that stops this absolutely irrational escalation in electricity and gas prices” and thus defends the industry, companies and citizens of the “blackmail” that Vladimir Putin seeks to “inflict” on the whole of the EU.

“outdated” design

The president explained that he has already arranged the details in some of the meetings he has held during the Versailles summit, but they will be closed soon. Executive sources later specified, reports EFE, that Sánchez’s intention is to visit four or five countries, some in favor of reviewing the system and others more reluctant to the proposals made by Spain. The socialist president understands that the agreement is “urgent and necessary” because there are “many productive sectors” that are “suffering” the consequences of an “outdated” wholesale market design and “there would be no reason for it.” With the current system, the price is determined by the latest technology that enters the system to meet demand, and all are paid equally regardless of their production cost. In this way, the escalation of gas infects the entire price-setting mechanism.

The Executive has proposed measures to Brussels since last fall, and feels that its proposals are penetrating and finding greater support despite the fact that they were received more coldly then. The objective is “to cut that contagion effect”, and the Spanish plan is to decouple gas from electricity. Other countries, he said, defend other mechanisms, but they share the same goal, so it will be fundamental, he said, how the “return game” is played, the European Council in 15 days. In this sense, he hopes that the mandate to the Commission that has come out of this informal summit in Versailles will have its most concrete translation in two weeks.

But if the Council at the end of March did not culminate with concrete measures, sources from the Executive indicated, reports EFE, then the Government would consider taking decisions unilaterally.

A “resounding” message also comes out of the meeting in Versailles that the Twenty-seven have to increase their investments in defense and “strengthen the common foreign and security policy.” In other words, Europe must “provide security in a complementary manner to NATO.” Sánchez recalled that the commitment to spending 2% of GDP on defense was made by the allies at the 2014 summit in Wales, and it is the horizon to which Spain must also “walk”. The immediate perspective is that spending in our country will be above 1.22% in 2024.

Sánchez stressed that the conclusions mention the need to increase “investments”, and in this aspect the Government complies “by far”, since it dedicates “20%” to them. What is being pursued is “to put an end to the fragmentation of the industrial and technological defense base in Europe and therefore to spend better to create synergies” that do not exist today. On the other hand, Spain does not plan to send more soldiers to reinforce the eastern flank —it is already deploying 150 more troops in Latvia—, in compliance with the activation of the graduated response plan as a result of the war in Ukraine.

The president was asked by journalists about the agreement between the PP and Vox in Castilla y León. With this pact, Spanish democracy is going through a “critical” moment, he said, after yesterday he spoke of “terrible news” and warned the PP that it would “pay dearly” politically. Sánchez revealed that some European leaders commented on this agreement, although he did not want to specify which ones.

It is a “serious” moment, “I do not want to put hot cloths on it,” he said, alluding to the international impact of the news. In this sense, he cited a dispatch from the British agency Reuters that reported that the extreme right will participate in power for the first time since Franco, as he recalled that the president of the European People’s Party, Donald Tusk, assumed the “capitulation” of the PP against to Vox. “This is what the world thinks of what has happened in Castilla y León,” he lamented.

Next, Sánchez pointed out that some points of the PP-Vox agreement call for “deep concern”, such as “weakening” social agents, “banalizing” sexist violence, “pointing out” the immigrant or ” frivolice” with historical memory. The document signed by the two parties does refer to “orderly” immigration or a law of “intra-family” violence, but it does not refer to the repeal of the democratic memory decree that the extreme right did demand. The vision projected by the text is “very retrograde”, valued the president, and points to priorities “far from the daily concerns of citizens” and from the “principles and values” that are the backbone of Spain.

Related news

As he told reporters last Tuesday, during the flight to Latvia, Sánchez indicated that he will call Alberto Núñez Feijóo when he is appointed as the new leader of the PP. In that conversation, he will also express his concern about the understanding with Vox. The head of the Xunta has argued that there was no other option in Castilla y León. The socialist leader responded that he has already offered the complete isolation of the extreme right, and that the situations must be faced head-on, so that if you want to lay a cordon sanitaire for Vox, you can, so “excuses of poor payer” are not valid “.

“We have to go from ambiguity to the concrete and the concrete is that when the PP, whoever directs it, has had to choose, it has chosen not to put a democratic cord on the extreme right, but to embrace the extreme right”, he repeated. And before Feijóo’s proposal that the most voted list govern, Sánchez recalled that the PP did not respect that maxim in recent years, when it took power in Andalusia or Ourense in 2019, territories in which the PSOE won, or in Madrid capital, where Manuela Carmena prevailed that year. “The PP speaks of the first political force as long as they are the first political force,” he quipped.



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