The Community of Madrid is going to present an appeal of unconstitutionality against the energy saving plan, given the "closeness" of the Government and its "non-rectification", because the rule is "putting into question" the "own" powers of the region, The Minister of the Environment, Paloma Martín, announced this Monday.
“We have just concluded the meeting with the ministers and there is no rectification by the Government. They maintain the imposition of the measures on commerce, the supermarket, the theater or the cinema, to name some of the most affected sectors”, explains Martín in an audio sent to the press after the Sectoral Conference on Energy, Industry and Commerce to address the Royal decree law.
The ministers of Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge (Teresa Ribera) and Industry, Commerce and Tourism (Reyes Maroto) have met electronically with regional officials and the Spanish Federation of Municipalities and Provinces (FEMP) to analyze the details of the savings and "clear up doubts" about the scope and application of the measures that come into force on Wednesday.
After affirming Ribera at a press conference that the Government will not withdraw the royal decree, Martín points out in his audio that the Community of Madrid has requested “an urgent meeting of the Conference of Presidents, the convening of the affected sectors and the withdrawal of the royal decree ”, because, “unlike what the European Union proposes, it imposes obligations on the private sector”.
“Faced with the Government's closure, its non-rectification, from the Community of Madrid we are going to announce the presentation of an appeal of unconstitutionality because what is being questioned are the powers of the Community of Madrid, specifically, those linked to trade ”, emphasizes the counselor of the Government of Isabel Díaz Ayuso.
According to the person in charge of the Environment, Housing and Agriculture, Madrid's proposals “are clear”: “Work to reduce electricity bills; we pay the most expensive bill in history and that threatens the purchasing power of families and the competitiveness of companies”.
And in addition, the regional government has presented "initiatives to continue advancing in the energy transition, to have a more diversified map and to be able to offer concrete responses to citizens and the main sectors of our economy," adds Martín, citing small and medium companies, traders and freelancers.
The other two Madrid councilors present at the sector Conference were those responsible for the Economy, Finance and Employment (Javier Fernández-Lasquetty) and for Culture, Tourism and Sports (Marta Rivera de la Cruz), who agreed to criticize the fact that tomorrow Madrid will become "the only major European capital where businesses have to turn off their lights at ten o'clock at night", and that the "particularities" of each territory are not taken into account in the royal decree, nor has the savings that each of these measures entails.
For Lasquetty, the royal decree "establishes a mandatory blackout for all businesses", and for this reason the Madrid councilors have been "very critical" at the meeting and have told the ministers that "things cannot be done like this, without evaluating the consequences, the insecurity” or the “feeling of insecurity” that the rule will bring.
In the case of a country "as touristic as Spain" it is something "very serious", underlines the counselor, for whom "a measure like this cannot be taken without seeing what consequences" it can have in terms of "economic contraction, reduction in the size of our economy and therefore job losses”.
