Greenpeace blasts Ribera for her backing of oil companies and attack on electricity companies

More than 3.3 billion in profits in little more than a month. This is the profit that Greenpeace calculates that oil companies in Europe have made since Russia invaded Ukraine on 24 February. "In Spain alone, the oil companies are earning an additional 7.6 million euros a day, while the population suffers record prices at the petrol stations," the organisation states in its report.

Greenpeace describes the profits as "immoral" and denounces that the 20 cents aid applied by the government "ends up directly in the pockets of the oil companies". It also calls for an end to these benefits and an investigation into possible price gouging on petrol prices.

The report comes out a week after the government approved measures to tackle energy prices in the Council of Ministers. Spain had appealed to the exceptional energy situation of the Iberian Peninsula before the European Union to obtain its authorisation to take measures outside the 'old continent's' regulations. The most striking of these measures is the 20 cents a litre reduction in fuel prices, 15 cents paid by the state and five cents by the oil company. But what is considered the 'star proposal' has yet to be finalised: a cap on the price of gas.

After setting a maximum of 67 euros per MWh, the government has told Europe that it does not want the price to exceed 30 euros. The problem, as with fossil fuels, is that the money that gas and oil companies stop earning will have to be contributed by electricity companies.

Last Tuesday, the CEO of Endesa, José Bogas, and the president of Iberdrola, Ignacio Sánchez Galán, coincided last Tuesday in a forum organised by 'El Español' in their rejection of the Iberian energy exceptionality. The reason is that they consider that it is their companies, the electricity companies, that will have to compensate for the losses of the oil and gas companies. "High gas prices are a problem that affects all of Europe equally and the solutions have to be common and not for each country to take measures in isolation," said Galán. "Any intervention in the market distorts it and the cap on gas prices will generate problems for companies that will have to be compensated," said Bogas.

But the third vice-president and minister for the Environment and Ecological Transition continues in her position of harassment against the electricity companies while maintaining an eloquent silence with regard to the gas and oil companies. In fact, she has accused the electricity companies of wanting to "derail the proposal". "We know that there are those who prefer this not to be applied and they are insisting before the European Commission. It is a front that we think is unfortunate", she said.

The Vice-President does not shake off her prejudices. She counts as her own, as Spanish, the 3.8 billion in profits that, for example, Iberdrola, which is a global group, has obtained. The company has reiterated that its profits come from its business abroad, specifically in the United States and Brazil, and that Iberdrola España, the local subsidiary, has only managed to improve its percentages by 0.5%. But she insists: "We have the great honour that the profits of the big electricity companies are higher in relative terms than those of other member states. That is not tolerable. We ask them to moderate their profits".

Sources in the electricity sector have responded to the minister by inviting her to modify the regulated electricity tariff. The reason for this is that 80% of energy production is already allocated to long-term fixed contracts, so the remaining 20%, which serves regulated contracts, are affected by market fluctuations.

The electricity companies understand that behind these government measures there is also a problem of legal certainty that directly affects their sector. The electricity companies understand that if the legal conditions that facilitated their investment, for example, in a renewable energy plant, are modified, the future development of the sector will be put at risk. In other words, the companies will look for other markets to guarantee their disbursements.

The reason given is that the construction of these infrastructures represents a very high investment that needs between ten and 15 years to reach profitability. If, during this period, legal modifications are introduced that change the conditions, delaying the timescales, the planned profitability and their numbers do not add up. This is why electricity companies are warning of this problem and are opening up the possibility of looking for new, more stable, secure and reliable markets. This circumstance clearly puts Europe and, clearly, Spain at risk, since the energy future of the 'old continent' depends on self-supply, on energy self-sufficiency. In other words, clean, renewable energies.