Congress will validate or repeal the energy saving decree next Thursday

The president of the Congress of Deputies, Meritxell Batet, plans to convene an extraordinary plenary session of the Chamber for next Thursday, August 25, to validate or repeal the energy saving decree approved by the Government on August 1 and which has been rejected already by the PP and Vox, who have threatened to take it to the Constitutional Court.

Thomas Osborne
Thomas Osborne
18 August 2022 Thursday 18:30
10 Reads
Congress will validate or repeal the energy saving decree next Thursday

The president of the Congress of Deputies, Meritxell Batet, plans to convene an extraordinary plenary session of the Chamber for next Thursday, August 25, to validate or repeal the energy saving decree approved by the Government on August 1 and which has been rejected already by the PP and Vox, who have threatened to take it to the Constitutional Court.

Batet has received a request from the Ministry of the Presidency, Relations with the Courts and Democratic Memory for the convening of an extraordinary plenary session for the validation or repeal of three royal decrees, among them the aforementioned economic sustainability measures in the field of transport, in terms of scholarships and study aid, as well as measures for saving, energy efficiency and reducing dependence on natural gas.

The other two decrees refer to the new contribution system for self-employed or self-employed workers and urgent measures against forest fires.

After receiving the request, the idea of ​​the president of the Chamber is to convene the plenary session for August 25 at 9 in the morning, according to parliamentary sources. On the other hand, Batet will convene the Permanent Council next Wednesday, August 24 in the afternoon.

Although the energy saving decree does not have guaranteed support, everything suggests that it will see the green light. Just yesterday, the third vice president and minister for the Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge, Teresa Ribera, valued the 3.7% drop in electricity demand in the first to the second week of August, in which they have begun to apply the measures. Ribera described this decrease as "a significant reduction in the midst of a heat wave", at a press conference in Mahón (Menorca) to take stock of the operation of the measures of the royal decree to reduce consumption in the context of the war in Ukraine, after one week of application.

He attributed the decrease in electricity demand in that week from August 8 to 14 "to the greater sensitivity of homes and companies with respect to the responsible use of energy and the measures of the decree law that called for a reduction in the temperature of the thermostat to cool and the turning off of the lighting of shop windows and unoccupied public buildings after ten o'clock at night".