The tax on energy companies that the Government approved by decree on Monday has very complicated validation in January, when it will reach Congress to be ratified or demolished. But the Executive, despite the fact that Junts and PNV have publicly and strictly refused to give in and lend their votes – which are essential – to approve the implementation of this rate throughout the year 2025, has modified its design to try attract these right-wing nationalist partners. As? Including exemptions of up to 60% in the amount to be paid for the tax on energy companies that make investments in renewable energy.
Specifically, the decree establishes that those that are “essential” for the ecological transition and decarbonization and that, due to their magnitude, contribute to economic growth and will be considered green investments and, therefore, can give rise to tax relief. employment. These investments, for example, include the production of renewable hydrogen or the transformation of waste into recycled products or renewable gases, such as biogas. And what the Government intends is to attract PNV and Junts with these exemptions, especially to the latter, who were closed from the first moment to extending the tax that has been in force since 2022, arguing that they did not want to harm Repsol and endanger jobs at its Tarragona plant.
The second of the novelties included in the text is a provision by which the Government undertakes to carry out a study of the results of the tax in the last quarter of 2025 to evaluate its maintenance on a permanent basis. This transformation would convert the current tax into a tax, a technical difference with which the Ministry of Finance tries to attract the PNV, since taxes can be transferred to the autonomous communities and, in that case, the Basque Country could reduce the scope of the tax.
In any case, and despite these gestures, it seems extremely complicated for Junts and PNV to give in, given the express and forceful rejection of the tax that they have been expressing for weeks. In fact, if the Government has approved the extension of the tax, it is more because of its parliamentary fragility and the compromise that it was forced to make a few weeks ago to push forward its lame tax reform in Congress. In fact, last Monday, President Pedro Sánchez assured that, with the approval of the decree that extends the tax on energy companies “complies” with the commitment it signed a few weeks ago with ERC, EH Bildu, Podemos and BNG.
The design of the tax, despite including these exemptions to attract PNV and Junts, It has been done without taking into account the two nationalist right-wing parties allied with the Governmentsince both have voluntarily absented themselves from the two meetings that the Ministry of Finance has called in recent weeks with its partners to try to reach an agreement.
Given the lack of progress in the negotiation, Podemos also refused to go to the last meeting, claiming to feel deceived by the Government, since the purple ones assure that the Moncloa guaranteed them that Junts and PNV were willing to vote in favor of extending the tax to energy companies, something that the Executive denies. Along these lines, this Monday Podemos took another step and announced that will also vote against the tax extension decree next month when it is debated in Congress, with the argument that the Treasury has given up and has stopped negotiating a definitive tax on energy companies.
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