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ARCHIVED - Government in Spain claims consumers pay the same for electricity as 2018
The OCU has slammed the government’s claim and insists that electricity is now 9% more expensive in Spain
Responding to the seemingly unending rise in the price of electricity, the president of the Spanish government, Pedro Sanchez, made a promise in September that by the end of the year, nobody would pay more for their household energy that what they paid in 2018. And speaking at the Council of Ministers on Tuesday November 30, a government spokesperson claimed that this “commitment is fulfilled” if one considers the average Spanish household and discounts inflation.
It may come down to semantics, but organisations such as the OCU have heavily criticised the government for changing the wording of their promise to make the achievement appear more positive than it actually is. Claiming that the average household pays the same for electricity as in 2018 is very different from Mr Sanchez’s guarantee to “all” citizens.
In any case, the group has argued that it would be “impossible” for the president to comply, unless consumers were charged nothing for electricity for the month of December. The average home benefiting from the regulated energy rate has already paid 803.18 euros in bills this year, exceeding 2018 prices, and if nothing changes, the total cost of electricity bills in 2021 will be 9% more expensive than in 2018, the association has concluded.
At the end of June the Government approved a temporary VAT reduction that is still in place, and in September it implemented a new tax reduction package in order to ease the burden on households and small businesses. Despite these measures, the cost of electricity in the wholesale market has continued its steady climb and on Tuesday November 30 reached its second-highest price in history, at a whopping 274 euros / MWh.
According to data from the CNMC also published on Tuesday, the average electricity bill in the last thirty days was 58% more expensive than a year ago and 57.5% more than 2019, before the pandemic.
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