The Congress of Deputies endorses, without changes, the cut to electricity companies

The Plenary of Congress has validated this Thursday the decree law to cut extraordinary benefits of the electrical for the gas cost overrun not assumed, and has approved its processing without changes by rejecting its admission as a bill.

Thus, in addition to the PSOE and United We Can, forces that make up the coalition government and that add up to 155 votes, have supported the decree law Esquerra Republicana (13), eh Bildu (5), CUP (2), Más País-Equo (2), BNG (1), Compromís (1), Teruel Existe (1) and PRC (1) and Nueva Canarias (1).

A total of 182 deputies, above the absolute majority, compared to the rejection of the 152 deputies of the PP (88 deputies), Vox (52), Ciudadanos (9), UPN (2) and Foro Asturias (1). The PNV (6), Junts (4) and PDeCAT (4) have abstained.

During her defense of the decree law, the vice president for the Ecological Transition, Teresa Ribera, has stressed the temporary nature of most of the measures included – the cut to the overpayment is until March 31 -, but has assured that it works not to apply it to the supply of energy to industries at “reasonable prices”.

Later, the vice president clarified that she negotiates with the industry and with the electricity companies the supply conditions to the plants to favor medium and long-term contracts at stable prices, prior to the current price escalation.

At this point, he assures that “the forecasts for September (when this decree law was approved) have been outdated”, something that “forces us to review measures already adopted” and “adapt them”.

All this during the defense in the Lower House of the decree law with a shock plan against escalating electricity prices, and whose main measure is the cut in the extraordinary profits of the electricity companies, which without assuming the extra cost of gas in the international markets, have received rewards well above their generation costs for this increase.

In the parliamentary debate, the parliamentary left has applauded the measures, although they regretted that they are temporary and that they do not go further.

“What can make the Government fall is that they continue to let the electricity companies earn all the money at the expense of the popular classes. It was the popular classes that put up this Government and not the electricity companies,” he claimed. Oskar Matute, assuming a “situation of kidnapping” and “blackmail” by the big companies.

Even granting that the marginalist system must be revised and that it is necessary to avoid that the electricity companies with different plants “play with them”, activating and paralyzing them “to achieve more profit” or even “modify prices”, the PNV has assured that the decree “If it is not modulated or corrected”, it will end up achieving “the opposite effect” to the one being pursued.

“It is not about giving in, but about modulating so as not to harm the fixed price,” said its economic spokesperson, Idoia Sagastizabal, in reference to the industry’s bilateral contracts at stable and long-term prices.