Hours of intense negotiations in the coalition government to illuminate the royal omnibus decree-law with important anti-crisis measures. Virtually all ministries are involved in the last standard of the year. The agreement to extend some measures is closed but there are others in which the conversations have become tense. The reform of taxes on banks and energy companies and aid for public transportation are two issues that have not yet been closed, according to Sumar sources.
The coalition assumes that it is necessary to continue partially extending the social shield designed by the Government to combat the effects of inflation, the energy crisis and the war in Ukraine. The negotiations are being led by the fourth vice-presidencies, from the PSOE, and the second, from Sumar.
There are measures that are already confirmed to be extended. The VAT reduction on food, for example, will continue until June. The suspension of evictions of vulnerable families without housing alternatives will also remain in force, but throughout the year. The prohibition on cutting off basic supplies is extended. The Government assumes that the situation continues to be an emergency for some groups. Discounts on the social electricity bonus will also be expanded, essential help for the most vulnerable consumers. Currently it represents a reduction in the electricity and gas bill from the original 25% to 65%. In the case of the severely vulnerable, the reduction has gone from the current 40% to 80%. These percentages could even be improved.
The main disagreement, however, affects the temporary levies on banks and energy companies that the Government has proposed to expand. The socialist area of ??the Government has opened up to modifying the tax that affects companies such as Repsol, Iberdrola, Endesa, Naturgy or Cepsa, among others, to, in the absence of extraordinary profits, take into account their investments in the energy transition. If these investments occur, the tax bill could be reduced. Adding requires maintaining the contribution of these companies.
Something similar happens with the tax on financial entities, a tax that, according to the still first vice president, Nadia Calviño, will also be reformed. Sumar refers to the coalition agreement: “We will review the taxes on banks and energy companies with the aim of readjusting and maintaining them once their current period of application expires, so that both sectors continue to contribute to tax justice and the maintenance of the Welfare state”.
Regarding transport, there is a debate in the coalition about who should benefit from greater discounts. The Ministry of Transport is studying maintaining the general bonuses for public transport, and expanding aid to young people, minors and people who are unemployed so that they can travel for free during 2024. Sumar, for its part, defends extending this free travel to of the company as a whole until December 2024 at least.
In the energy field, it is taken for granted that the Iberian exception ends, by which Spain and Portugal established a maximum amount of between 45 and 65 euros for the price per MWh for the gas used for electricity production that enters the daily market auctions. wholesaler. As announced last week by the third vice president and minister for the Ecological Transition, Teresa Ribera, Brussels considers that the market conditions of price tension in the gas market no longer exist to maintain the authorization of said exception.
The measure should have ended last July but Spain and Portugal managed to extend it until the end of the year as a “safeguard measure” in case of complications in the gas market. Some complications that have disappeared. In terms of gas prices in the European wholesale market, it has not exceeded 100 euros since January, far from the 290 that it reached in August 2022. In fact, the measure has not been applied since February 20 because at no time has the The price of gas has exceeded the limit set by that exception. Currently, it barely exceeds 35 euros, due to the indulgence of winter temperatures in Europe and the strong reserves that all countries maintain.
A context that also evolves against the exceptional measures to help consumers that were approved at the beginning of the war and that were mainly based on a generalized tax reduction to alleviate consumer bills. Thus, the VAT on electricity and gas was cut from the general rate of 21% to the current 5%. The Special Electricity Tax was also reduced to 0.5%, the minimum required by Brussels, compared to the usual 5%, and the Tax on the Value of Electrical Energy Production was suspended, which taxed this activity at 7%. , is suspended.
The large electricity companies demand that the suspension of the generation tax be maintained or even suspended given the decrease in competitiveness that it represents for companies compared to their European competition.
Negotiation work will continue between both parties throughout the day, the Government points out.
Meanwhile, EH Bildu reported this Tuesday that it has agreed with the Government that the new decree on social measures includes the extension, until 2025, of the ban on evictions of people in vulnerable situations.
In the opinion of the Abertzale coalition, this measure and the 3% cap on rent increases agreed in the Housing Law “represent two essential measures in the face of the difficult housing situation experienced by thousands and thousands of families.”