It was only a matter of time and the news broke yesterday. At mid-morning, the CEO of Repsol, Josu Jon Imaz, announced to the analysts during the presentation of the company's results that Repsol will appeal the extraordinary tax with which the Government taxes 1.2% of the income from activities in Spanish territory from the large energy companies, which costs the main Spanish oil company 450 million euros.
While this was happening, the Spanish Association of Energy Companies (Aelec) sent a statement on behalf of its associates, including Iberdrola, Endesay EDP, confirming what was expected. It will appeal to the National Court.
The argument cannot be another. "Our lawyers have studied the measure and consider it unconstitutional," said Imaz. It is the same one that the bank employers take refuge in, whose decision to appeal to the courts for the same reason was known on Wednesday.
Aelec will file a contentious administrative appeal before the National Court in which they will defend that the tax is "discriminatory and unjustified". For this, they will use four reasons. The first appeals to the contradiction with the European regulation. “The EU has established a tax on oil and gas in which nothing is said about the electricity sector. Therefore, the tax approved in Spain penalizes a key sector to promote the necessary change in the energy model”, they point out.
The second deals with the concept that taxes the Spanish tax. "We are the only country in Europe that taxes income, specifically 1.2%." The European windfall tax is levied on profits.
Aelec also attacks "discrimination" that means applying it only to some utilities and not others and finally "fiscal inconsistency" that involves taxing income that since 2021 has been regulated by the public administration at 67 euros/MWh.
