Spain urges a great ‘green deal’ to accelerate key energy investments in the face of the threat from the US and Asia

Spain wants to bring together all the debates that have been open these months in the European Union related to the energy transition. The Government has proposed to Brussels a great pact for a green economy. According to the response that Vice President Nadia Calviño has sent to Brussels, to which EL PAÍS has had access, this agreement must include the reform of the electricity market, the review of State aid and its financing through the Recovery Fund, the RepowerEU plan, the reform of the Stability and Growth Pact and, lastly, the promotion of pending trade agreements with Latin America. The letter also points out sectors that, in Madrid’s opinion, should be strategic and should be privileged when “expediting strategic investments”, such as green hydrogen, biogas, the electric vehicle industry or semiconductors.

Just five months after Spain takes over the Presidency of the EU, the Government of Pedro Sánchez has taken advantage of the open debate on the review of State aid in the EU to present something similar to its priorities for that second semester de in Spain will have to take charge of the Council of the European Union. They are in the letter that Calviño sent to the vice president and head of Competition of the Commission, Margrethe Vestager. She was responding to the one that the Danish commissioner had sent to the capitals last January asking for opinions on the revision of the State aid model that France and Germany are pushing with the argument that Europe cannot lose footing in the green and digital transition in the face of to China and the United States, which has just approved a law that subsidizes green investments.

In the Spanish text it is pointed out that this great green pact must have four legs. The first is the reform of the electricity market, a process that has been open these months, which for Madrid “is a top priority”, because it is the “main disadvantage of the European industry”. The following focuses on State aid to the private sector that must have “an accelerated procedure for strategic projects within the framework of the National Recovery Plans and in key sectors, which provide greater strategic, technological and energy autonomy, such as clean energy, semiconductors, electric vehicles or critical technologies”.

The third pillar of the pact concerns “green financing, a holistic approach is also needed to mobilize the necessary public and private investment through a coherent package of key reforms and legislative files that will most likely come to maturity under the next Spanish presidency ”. He then points out upcoming subjects such as the review of fiscal rules or the multiannual budgetary framework of the EU. The last one is the one referring to trade agreements with Latin America, which with the need for strategic raw materials in the energy transition have become vital, because until now Europe is highly dependent on China or Russia.