The Diplomat
The Governments of Spain and Portugal delivered last Wednesday a proposal to the European Commission to set a reference price for gas of 30 euros per megawatt (MWh) in order to lower the price of electricity and “avoid the contagion effect of the escalation of gas prices in the electricity market”.
According to the document, to which the Portuguese daily Público had access, Portugal and Spain have proposed a “temporary measure” given the “exceptional circumstances that are causing serious economic difficulties”. In the opinion of the two Iberian countries, this wholesale market price of 30 euros corresponds to “the ‘normal’ price in pre-crisis times”. The two governments want this measure to be in force until December 31 of this year, when gas prices are expected to remain close to 200 euros per MWh. In statements to Público, the spokesman for the European Commission, Eric Mamer, assured that the Community Executive “will evaluate the Iberian proposal with the utmost diligence”. “We understand the urgency of the situation,” he added, without specifying a deadline for Brussels’ response.
For her part, the third vice-president and Minister of Ecological Transition, Teresa Ribera, confirmed this news yesterday during a visit to the region of El Bierzo (León) and specified that Spain and Portugal are working with the European Commission on the “master lines” of this joint proposal. The price of electricity has been “absolutely out of any ordinary or foreseeable pattern” since the summer of 2021, when tensions began over the supply of gas from Russia to Europe.
The proposal of the two Iberian countries comes a few days after the European Council granted Spain and Portugal the right to manage their own energy prices, in view of the “energy island” character of the Iberian Peninsula due to its very low interconnection with the European energy market. The “Iberian” solution was proposed by Pedro Sanchez and the Prime Minister of Portugal, António Costa, after noting the impossibility of convincing the 27 EU states to fix the price of gas in order to contain electricity prices in the wholesale market, a proposal defended by Spain, Portugal, Italy, Greece and Belgium and radically opposed by Germany and the Netherlands.
