I remember the PP and Vox going after the Iberian exception, the measure adopted by the Government of Pedro Sánchez to ease the electricity bill for citizens and companies in the worst of the illegal war launched by Putin against Ukraine. Those were the times, according to the PP, of the “Iberian scam.”
Four years later, due to the consequences of a new illegal war, that of Trump and Netanyahu against Iran, it is Italy that is heading down a similar path. Giorgia Meloni boasts of a preliminary agreement with Brussels to intervene in her country’s electricity market. The question is: where is the “Italian scam”? You don’t hear her Spanish allies denouncing this intervention of the hallowed market with the same zeal. It seems that the judgment depends too much on the color of the Government.
The fact is that Meloni is doing nothing more than taking advantage of the path cleared then by Spain and Portugal. This is not a capricious comparison: ARERA, the Italian regulator, expressly takes the Iberian cap as a conceptual model and considers that its net balance has been broadly favorable. Spanish right-wing should recognize that the Government was right to protect consumers from that emergency. But for the Government, not water.
Where is the “Italian scam”? You don’t hear her Spanish allies denouncing this intervention of the hallowed market with the same zeal
Let’s call it to mind. In 2022, renewables contributed the 42.2% of the Spanish mix and combined-cycle plants, 24.7%. However, when gas set the marginal price, its increased cost was passed on to the electricity produced with other technologies, driving up the bill. In March of that year, just before the intervention, the Spanish daily market had averaged 283.30 €/MWh. The problem was that the cost of a part of generation that contaminated the price of the whole.
The Iberian exception, in place since June 15, 2022, stopped that contagion, saving tens of billions of euros for citizens and businesses, 4,970 million euros until January 31, 2023 according to the MITECO. With an essential fact: in August 2022 the resulting price, including compensation to power plants, was more than 18% lower than what would have been recorded without the mechanism. That is what matters: the savings after paying for the adjustment.
It also helped contain inflation. The Banco de España initially calculated that the mechanism would reduce average inflation in 2022 by around half a percentage point. The INE would ultimately confirm a drop in interannual CPI from 10.8% in July to 5.7% in December. It would be an exaggeration to attribute all of that decline to the Iberian exception—other factors also influenced it, including the evolution of the gas price and other measures—but denying its contribution is also not supported.
In the face of the current crisis, I believe Italy has reasons to intervene, but it does so under less favorable conditions to reproduce the Spanish result. In 2025, renewables accounted for the 49.4% of its generation and gas, for 44.6%. Its average wholesale price was 115.94 €/MWh, compared with 65.28 in Spain: 78% more.
This difference matters: with equal design and a price reduction, a higher share of gas-fired generation requires compensating more electricity and leaves less room for net savings. Nor is it enough to compare the total renewable percentage. According to Ember, in 2025 wind and solar contributed the 42% of Spanish electricity, compared with the 25% of Italian electricity. My thesis is that Italy will have more difficulty repeating the Iberian benefit; quantifying its final savings will require knowing the final design.
Italy has reasons to intervene, but starts from less favorable conditions to reproduce the Spanish result
Moreover, Italy has more exchange capacity with its neighbors. For the winter of 2025, ARERA recorded peaks of around 11.5 GW of imports and 5.8 GW of exports in the working hours of highest activity. The connection with France, the main outlet of the Iberian market to the rest of Europe, was around 2.8 GW in 2022. These are exchange capacities, not quantities actually exported, but they show why transboundary effects must be examined carefully.
Italy was a net importer in 2025: it bought 51.8 TWh and sold 4.9 TWh, according to Terna. That does not prevent exporting in certain hours. Reducing the gas recognized for power plants can shift imports and increase domestic production, gas consumption, or exports. If the benefit goes abroad and the compensation remains within, part of the cost ends up being borne by the Italian consumer. It is a risk that the design must limit, not a loss that can already be assumed to occur as calculated.
There is another decisive difference that ARERA itself points out: in the Iberian case, revenues associated with congestion on interconnections increased and helped finance the measure. In Italy, the opposite could happen: as the price gap with the countries from which it imports electricity narrows, those revenues would decrease, especially at the northern borders. Fewer resources through that channel may leave a larger share of the compensation to be paid by local consumers.
Because the intervention has to be paid for. Italian legislation provides for recovering compensation through charges on electricity consumption. Therefore, the immediate risk falls on bills; not all of the cost is automatically charged to public coffers. If the Government assumed it through the Budgets, a debt of 139.9% of GDP would come into play. Another reason to demand full accounts and safeguards before celebrating the announcement.
But Spain is not the same as in 2022 either. According to Red Eléctrica’s provisional data for the January-September period of this year, renewables accounted for 57.3% of generation; nuclear for 18.7% and combined-cycle for 16.8%. Within the total, photovoltaic made up 23%, wind 19.7% and hydro 11.4%. The system has changed, and our response to crises must take that into account.
The Ember comparison is revealing: between January and May 2026, gas influenced the price in 9% of the hours in Spain, versus 75% in Italy. In Spain, that indicator was 52% in 2021. It is an estimate of gas’s influence, not the percentage of electricity it generates. Renewables are weakening the link that previously forced people to pay so much electricity at the price of fossil fuel.
That does not make us immune. Red Eléctrica placed the average price of the daily market for September at 143.25 €/MWh. The pressure of this autumn forces action wherever exposure to gas persists. But the data for the first months cannot be extrapolated to the whole year, nor can it be considered justified to repeat, without changes, a general intervention designed for the 2022 system.
The Iberian exception was a bridge to get through an emergency while we moved forward with renewables. Turning it into a permanent solution could weaken investment signals and prolong the dependency we want to overcome. Another issue is to demand a special contribution for the extraordinary benefits that the crisis is generating in the fossil industry.
A recent example: Repsol reported a few days ago a net profit of 5,006 million euros between January and September 2026, compared with 1,177 million a year earlier. It includes a positive effect of 943 million from the revaluation of inventories. Not all profit is equivalent to a gain that falls from the sky, but these figures justify examining what extraordinary rents the crisis generates and how they can help alleviate it.
The Iberian exception was a bridge to get through an emergency while we moved ahead with renewables
That is the strategic risk for Italy: spending more and more to cushion the price of gas without accelerating enough the alternatives that allow depending on it less. It is surprising that Meloni has to protect her country from a crisis exacerbated by the U.S. and Israel war against Iran, while her European allies are much less belligerent toward the decisions of her friend Trump than toward the measures promoted by the Spanish Government.
The recipe for Italy is similar, though not identical, to Spain’s: more renewables, grids, and storage, along with a greater electrification of the economy. Temporary aid can make sense if it helps to reach that destination sooner. If it perpetuates gas, it will end up feeding the bill of the next fossil crisis.
Gas can have a cap; political incoherence seems not to.