They have been told by good, for the best and almost by bad.
In public and privately, in a group and solo, within a room and on press wheels, they have put it even in writing several times, but the government of Pedro Sánchez does not understand it or does not want to understand it.
Spain continues to insist on a drastic and revolutionary solution at European level to deal with the rise in receipt of light, but its partners and European institutions are not for work, have been told that there is no way for that to happen
And they no longer know how to transmit it.
This Tuesday, the Energy Ministers of the 27 have seen the faces in Luxembourg for an extraordinary council motivated by the electrical situation and the pressure of capital such as Madrid.
The idea was to start working immediately to shape the guidelines marked by the Heads of State and Government last week, which have invited the Commission and the Ministers to develop joint proposals and continue advancing in solutions for the European Council that
It will take place in December.
Spain, insistent, arrived at the meeting with a ‘non-paper’, a very aggressive position document, which requested its colleagues and the European Commission to, since they are not arranged at a copernican turn at a community level,
They allow at least those who want to go separately be bold, even re-asking green light to be able to intervene the price fixing mechanism.
Not something structural, but conjunctural.
“Allowing each country to adapt the formation of the price of electricity to its specific situation, by the Mix, the sources and the level of interconnection”, which in the case of the Iberian Peninsula is especially low, requests the document.
But the answer, once again, has been not.
It has said it 11 countries of the center, the North and the Baltic, headed by Germany and the Netherlands in a sharp document that warns that they are against “ad hoc” changes and reforms of the electric market that has been very important to build.
And against generating impacts impossible to meet.
“The Spanish Government is promising more by saying that joint gas purchases will solve the crisis, which will solve the crisis are investments in long-term efficiency. What Spain needs more are interconnections,” said Tuesday the Luxemburguian minister,
Claude Turmes.
“I do not think we should emphasize too high in the EU level measurements because we can not influence global coal, gas and oil prices,” the German Andreas Feicht warned.
“We do not believe that we should adopt too hasty measures, which would actually take at higher long-term prices or could undermine our climate objectives,” he said.
Something like this also said the European Commissioner of Energy, Kadri Simson, after reading the Spanish proposals and the words of the Secretary of State, Sara Aagest, who went to the meeting instead of the Ribera Vice President, occupied in Madrid in the Council of Ministers. “It is not very clear how a system with prices for different energy sources could work in practice and if it could be a better alternative to the system as it is now designed,” Simon cooled in an appearance after concluding the Luxembourg quote. “A change in the current model can generate a risk to the market predictability, competitiveness and transition to green energies,” the Commissioner insisted, making a firefly defense of the Moncloa criticism. For it, the head of it and a majority of the countries, the current model allows an adequate balance between supply and demand and “guarantee safety in supply”, preventing “risk situations such as blackouts”.
The message can not be clearer. Spain, in one of the most combative strategies that has been employed in the EU in the last decade at least, no evidence or defeats are not surrendered. He knows that appetite is very scarce (France, Greece, Portugal, Czech Republic or Hungary support the general idea and some of the proposals) that the opposition is already fierce, but keeps squeezing until you try to find a fissure that allows you to cut the climbing prices. If the Commission is not going to address a regulatory change, if the marginalist system is not going to be changed, if you are not going to be introduced at the price of the megawatt hour or to prevent speculation, at least you want it to be approved temporarily and By extraordinary circumstances, a permit for some countries to do so. It is more than delicate, but the thesis of Sánchez and Ribera is that also the stability pact was sacred, but when an unprecedented crisis came into an induced coma, allowing expenses almost without limit to the states. And they want something similar.
The refusal is angry, offending, surprising and desperate the Spanish executive, according to the day and tone.
“It does not make a lot of sense,” Aagesen said about the criticisms and position of the 11 countries mentioned and defending the absurdity of acting “in an isolated manner”.
Madrid has assured its partners that in any case it would be a “temporary” solution while prices maintain prohibitive levels.
And that in any case they are waiting for the outcome of the investigation, or study, that the institutions and community agencies will make the system to find failures and possible margins of improvement.
The European negative is also reaching one of the few areas in which Spain had received some support, the idea of a purchase and storage set of gas to regulate the prices at times of greater volatility.
The suggestion, which was already on the European board in 2000 or 2010, is collected in the ‘toolbox’ that Brussels presented two weeks ago, but there was no reference to it in the Conclusions document of the Summit of the Week
pass.
“You have to study the pros and cons, because there are many problems that take into account,” said Messaria Simson today.
“Who would pay the transportation of gas or storage, we will see what all countries say to know who are willing to participate in a voluntary system,” she said.
The reiterated ‘not’ is not unusual in negotiations that deeply affect a country but not all equally;
The Commission is used to and Spain has some experience as well.
It is novel the high political profile that is being given to this, because it is usually done more discreetly at a diplomatic level, but the strategy is not necessarily contumaz.
Insisting until when it seems that it is shown with a wall sometimes unexpected gaps, which do not revolutionize but allow small victories.
But also, when a country, and plus one of the four large, he insists so much on something vital, can not go empty.
The debate is still open and variable can come out, such as that of energy interconnections, via France.
There the commission can squeeze a lot more than before to help and compensate our country.
Is Sánchez ready to go only until the end, until the last consequences?
The Commission continues to analyze now the battery of measures launched by Spain and that have generated an aggressive lobby reaction by the companies that have been committed to their benefits, but also by which they are calling all offices urging that the
Institutions declare those steps illegal, so that nobody else follows that wake.
Moncloa can get a certain weight in that fight.
“Spain what puts as a priority before looking for a second option is that Europe react to this proposal and work,” has warned the Secretary of State Aagest, freely outlining the idea of going to the clash in case of not getting anything from what
asks.
