Ribera affirms that dismantling energy protection measures will not be addressed until the end of the year

MADRID, 8 Jun. (EUROPA PRESS) -

The Third Vice President of the Government and Minister for Ecological Transition, Teresa Ribera, has described the European Commission as "optimistic" in response to its request to European countries to gradually dismantle the extraordinary intervention measures in the energy sector that were adopted last year to deal with the crisis caused by Russia's invasion of Ukraine, and has assured that Spain will not study until the end of the year whether it is necessary to annul these measures by 2024.

Speaking to the press before inaugurating the III Self-Consumption and Energy Communities Summit organized by the Spanish Photovoltaic Union (UNEF), Ribera stated that Spain has a package of measures, many of them in force until the end of the year, "that give tranquility and coverage" to consumers, so that until the end of this year it will not be seen "if it is necessary to follow the recommendations of the Commission and by 2024 leave these measures without effect or, on the contrary, it has to be claimed and raised the need for its extension".

This Monday, the European Commission defended in a report withdrawing intervention measures from the electricity market such as the income limit for inframarginal energies --nuclear, renewable--, established in September 2022 to deal with the spike in electricity prices derived of Russia's attack on Ukraine given the current stabilization of prices.

Likewise, given the current conditions with natural gas and electricity prices that have returned to less stressed levels, Brussels also does not consider the need to extend other market intervention measures, such as demand reduction, which has also been introduced in a structural way in its proposal to review the electricity market.

The minister considered that the Brussels proposal is a sign of "an optimistic scenario regarding Europe's ability to transform its energy model and defending the need to reduce dependence on markets from Russia."

In this sense, Ribera assured that the Spanish Government will take these recommendations into account, although he insisted that there is a protective package, "hopefully it will not need to be applied as has happened with the Iberian solution in recent months due to the fall in natural gas prices.