The Government of Pedro Sánchez has once again set off alarms in the European energy sector after the PSOE has officially opened the door to a new extraordinary tax that would no longer affect only oil and gas companies, but also large electricity companies.
The controversy arrives just a few weeks after the President of the Government sent a very different message at an important energy forum held in Madrid, where he reassured the European wind sector by assuring that the Executive's objective was to tax only the extraordinary profits of companies linked to oil and gas following the price escalation derived from the war with Iran.
From reassuring the power companies… to including them in the tax
Everything began on April 21st during the annual meeting of WindEurope, one of the main European energy associations, held at Ifema. There, Sánchez toured the stands, showed himself to be close to the sector's executives and even maintained a cordial image with the president of Iberdrola, Ignacio Galán, despite the clashes that both had staged in the past.
The message left by the president seemed clear: the tax would be directed solely at oil and gas companies. “We have asked the European Commission to create a special tax on the extraordinary profits of oil and gas companies,” he stated then.
Those words were interpreted in the electrical sector as a relief. The large wind and electrical companies understood that they were outside the Government's fiscal focus.
But just a few days later, the narrative began to change.
Moncloa expands focus to "all energy companies"
In subsequent statements from Nicosia, during a European Council, Sánchez broadened the scope of the levy and began to speak of a tax aimed at “large energy companies”, without excluding electricity companies.
“We have to re-create an extraordinary tax on large energy companies”, affirmed the president, also recovering the idea of taxing so-called “windfall profits”.
The turn was fully confirmed on May 6, when the PSOE presented a non-binding proposal to promote a “temporary European levy on the extraordinary profits of energy companies”.
Official sources from the socialist group acknowledge that the proposal also affects electricity companies: “Yes, all of them, including the electricity companies,” they admit.
The sector speaks of "deception"
The reaction of the companies has not been long in coming. A senior executive from the electricity sector who attended the WindEurope meeting directly accuses the president of having hidden his true intentions. “Sánchez deceived us all that day,” he assures.
The WindEurope association itself, in which companies such as Iberdrola, Acciona, EDP, Enel, or Nordex participate, maintains that reintroducing an extraordinary tax would cause “legal uncertainty” and could scare away investments just when Europe is trying to accelerate the energy transition.
European socialists distance themselves
Paradoxically, resistance does not only come from companies. Part of the European socialist bloc itself also does not want the new levy to reach the electricity sector.
According to a letter sent to the European Commissioner for Energy, Dan Jorgensen, several social democratic leaders in the European Parliament advocate taxing oil and gas companies, but avoiding equivalent measures for electricity companies, arguing that renewables need stability to continue growing.
The document is signed, among others, by the vice-president of the European socialist group, Mohammed Chahim, and the Industry coordinator, Dan Nica.
Brussels cools Sánchez's plan
For now, Sánchez does not have a clear majority in the European Union to move forward with the tax, although some countries, such as Portugal, are also studying similar formulas to increase public revenue by taking advantage of the high profits of the energy sector.
Meanwhile, the Spanish Government seems to be trying to prepare the political ground to recover a model similar to the extraordinary tax applied in 2022.
Repsol and Moeve also attack the tax
The oil companies have also not hidden their rejection. The CEO of Repsol, Josu Jon Imaz, recently warned that re-imposing this type of measure would be “harmful and counterproductive”.
“If you suffer confiscations, you are not going to invest more to guarantee the supply,” he assured.
The debate over the price of electricity
The controversy also arrives at a delicate moment for the Government after the latest data published by Eurostat. Pedro Sánchez had defended in the same energy forum that Spain had "the cheapest electricity in Europe", but European figures reflect another reality.
According to Eurostat, once tolls, tax burdens, and additional costs are included, the Spanish electricity bill ranks among the ten most expensive in the European Union in comparable purchasing power terms.