The Secretary of State for Energy, Joan Groizard, has advocated that any eventual extraordinary levy on oil companies be addressed in a "common" manner within the EU, in order not to "fragment the internal market" and because he admits that in Spain there could be problems gathering the necessary parliamentary majority to push it forward.
Groizard made these considerations in Gatika (Bizkaia), where he traveled to supervise the works of the electrical interconnection with France through the Bay of Biscay.
During the visit, and in response to the media, he spoke about the EU's position against the Government potentially capping the price of gas to lower the electricity bill and, in addition, he analyzed the option of recovering the extraordinary tax on oil companies.
Regarding taxation, he pointed out that, concerning a possible extraordinary tax on these companies, it is key that measures are adopted at a European level and that what is agreed upon "is common" within the Union.
In this regard, he emphasized that they have already signed several documents along with other member states directed to the European Commission to study and design tools applicable at the community level. "We believe that acting at the national level carries risks of fragmenting the internal market, which is the opposite of what we want to achieve," he stated.
He also pointed out that the implementation of this type of fiscal instruments requires a determined parliamentary majority. In this context, he recalled that, with the previous taxes on "windfall" profits, there was a majority in Parliament that "was not willing to promote that type of instruments." "That is why we believe that the solution is European, that the solution has to be common and that is the area in which we are working," he stated.
Regarding the Iberian exception and Brussels' position, he highlighted that the current crisis finds Spain in a "very different" situation compared to the previous energy crisis arising from the war in Ukraine. "This time Spain is much better prepared in energy costs," he indicated.
In this line, he emphasized that in the first and second quarters Spain appeared in the international economic press "as an example of responding to this type of crisis for having made a commitment to renewables."
"In Ukraine we had not arrived on time, with the current crisis we have arrived much more prepared and, in fact, what we are seeing is that, despite the fact that electricity prices have indeed skyrocketed in the summer due to the contagion effect of gas, we are doing much better than the vast majority of Europe," he added.
He also explained that the European regulatory framework has changed and that, as a result of the previous crisis, a whole "regulatory framework for crisis response" was articulated that "guides, but maybe also constrains, depending on how it is viewed, how to respond to crises".
Joan Groizard emphasized that the Iberian mechanism was "a solution that provided a very good response" to the evolution of energy prices in a context "where there was no regulation and that is why an exception to that increase was found".
In any case, the Secretary of State for Energy has assured that they are conducting "very close" monitoring of price evolution to "put on the table the instruments that are necessary to protect consumers".