This morning, the Executive Council came to an agreement to ask the European Commission to enforce the Spanish Government to fulfil its obligations and forbid fuel cuts to those most vulnerable in the critical periods of the year. These obligations are established in the European Commission’s Electricity and Gas Directives ( 2009/72/EC and 2009/73/EC, respectively) and were put into place to protect those most vulnerable in matters of energy supply. However, the deadline for the adoption of these European directives to the Spanish legal system was on March 3^rd 2011.

 

In September 2013, the European Economic and Social Committee insisted on the necessity to transpose these directives and guarantee the protection of those who are most vulnerable. So far, however, State legislation has only regulated social bonds within the energy industry, a regulation which does not satisfy the EU directive requirements in terms of their definition and the protection of vulnerable consumers.

  

The Catalan Government will also inform the European Commission on the appeal filed by the Spanish Government against the Catalan legal decree to mitigate energy poverty which was put forward by the Government of Generalitat.  This decree had previously established specific criteria to impede the interruption of energy supply between November and March. Furthermore, the Executive Council agreed to request the European Commission apply appropriate measures against the Central Government and to take into account that the decree implemented within the Catalan territory, in fact, maintained the European directives. However with the Spanish State’s appeal and subsequent suspension, it has left vulnerable energy consumers in Catalonia virtually unprotected during the most critical periods of the year.

 

The agreement reached today by the Executive Council encompasses the activity carried out by the Government of Catalonia to protect the energy consumers who are most vulnerable and continue the mitigation of fuel poverty.