From “preaching in the desert” to being declared top visionaries of the energy crisis. In just one year, the ideas and proposals defended by the Government of Pedro Sánchez in Europe to lower gas and electricity prices have gone from being discarded as impractical to becoming part of the new mainstream in Brussels.
"Spain recognizes itself in many of these measures because it has been one of its main supporters," Sánchez said at the end of the tense two-day summit held this week in the community capital, where he arrived with the approval of France to build a new gas pipeline from Barcelona to Marseille and improve the electrical interconnections of the Iberian Peninsula.
Initiatives such as joint purchases or reducing the influence of gas in determining the price of electricity, starting with the mere statement that a European and not just a national response is urgently needed, are some of the key pieces of the complex puzzle of measures that Europe is arming to resist Vladimir Putin's energy blackmail. The European turnaround has taken more than a year to materialize.
At the Athens summit with the southern countries, Sánchez defended that the rise in prices is not an individual problem of certain states and it is urgent to "find European solutions." Four days later, the Government expressed in a letter signed by the vice presidents Nadia Calviño and Teresa Ribera its proposals to face the crisis: reform the electricity market, allow governments to have their own price setting system and make joint purchases of gas, as was done in the pandemic with vaccines.
The reception to the demands of Spain, seconded among others by France, Italy and Greece, is completely cold in Brussels, which attributes the shortage to the increase in demand from Asia and Spain's dependence on purchases in the daily market, more volatile. The European Commissioner for Energy, Kadri Simson, maintains that prices will moderate from March 2022. "At the moment, the member states are the best positioned to react," she insists. The simile with the pandemic is not clear: buying vaccines is not the same as buying gas. Ribera explodes: the proposals from Brussels are "manifestly incongruous" with "the exceptional nature of the situation", he complains without success. Not everyone has yet felt the blow of the energy crisis.
The first reaction of the Agency for the Cooperation of Energy Regulators, in October 2021, is categorical: allowing each country to choose its own pricing system would be "dangerous" for market stability.
The Spanish Government insists on taking its ideas to the Council of Energy Ministers in October 2021. Hours before the meeting, Germany and eight other countries publish a statement in which they reject the reform of the wholesale electricity market requested by Spain and align with Brussels.
In December, both parties reiterate their arguments. “We cannot support any measure that represents a deviation from the competitive principles of our electricity and gas market design,” say Berlin and its allies. The South insists that the EU must give more room to countries so that "final consumers pay a price for electricity that reflects the costs of the mix used for their own consumption", which is not the case for those who use more renewable or nuclear than gas.
Europe wakes up to the news that the Russian army has launched a brutal offensive on Ukraine. In a short time, the Union adopts several rounds of sanctions. There is widespread fear that Moscow will close the gas tap, but it remains firm in its rejection of military aggression.
Sánchez takes his battle to the March European Council. In Brussels they compare him to a Don Quixote fighting against windmills, because there is nothing to do and he doesn't see it, they say. The President of the Spanish Government joins forces with the Portuguese leader, António Costa, to propose a specific solution for the Iberian Peninsula, justified by its lack of interconnections and the high use of renewables. Germany and Holland do not see it clearly. "I'm going to air out for a while," Sánchez released in full summit. After seven hard hours of negotiations, the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, announced the agreement for an “Iberian exception”.
In summer, the rise in prices gets out of control and hits Germany hard. In September, von der Leyen admits for the first time that the tensions of the past year were already due to manipulation by the Kremlin. Criticism of the inaction of Brussels, which changes its discourse and proposes to intervene in the markets by means of taxes on companies, capping the price of renewables, as Spain did a year ago, and Russian gas, is intensifying. The European Council wants more. More than 20 countries are calling for a general cap, speeding up market reform and exploring expanding the Iberian exception. Berlin rocks.
Politico Europe, the reference medium in the European bubble, this week pointed out Vice President Ribera as the "most visionary" leader of the crisis.
The pressure on Germany, isolated as never before in the EU, works, and Foreign Minister Olaf Scholz agrees to create a gas price correction mechanism and explore a European version of the Iberian exception. Brussels, now yes, will speed up the work to make joint purchases of gas. General satisfaction with “European solutions”.
Von der Leyen has announced a proposal to reform the energy pricing system for the first quarter of 2023. Its management will be in the hands of Spain: on July 1, 2023, it will hold the rotating presidency of the EU, which implies take command of the Energy Council, but also be a neutral arbiter of the negotiation.
