The European Commission has abandoned recommending a mandatory weekly day of teleworking as an energy-saving measure in its list of responses to the crisis unleashed by the war in the Middle East. The recommendation was included in the first drafts, but it is finally not in the definitive version approved by the commissioners. In the document, which President Ursula von der Leyen will present this Thursday to leaders at the informal European Council held in Cyprus, the foreseen relaxation of State aid rules and measures to boost electricity over fossil fuels by reducing the tax bill of the former do appear. So far, the energy crisis has increased the bill to be paid by Europeans by 24 billion euros, according to the calculations of the EU Executive.
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The recommendation of “one mandatory day of teleworking per week” was included in the annexes of several drafts of the communication, one of them advanced by EL PAÍS, prior to the definitive document approved this Wednesday. The abandonment of this recommendation occurred because in internal discussions there were hesitations to speak of “mandatory,” a community source points out, and that not all economic sectors are the same. Others speak of legal doubts about the implementation of this measure.
The energy package presented by the Commission this Wednesday, on which it has been working for more than a month, has finally become a set of recommendations and coordination measures in which the most ambitious part, from a regulatory point of view, is the relaxation of State aid. This measure, whose development falls to Vice-President Teresa Ribera, responds to the three characteristics demanded by the EU Executive in the face of this crisis: “timely, specific, and temporary.”
As anticipated, the package includes a mention of the additional extra profits that energy companies are making due to price increases. “Member States can also take measures on windfall profits to ensure social equity,” the document states. Ribera has also indicated that she is willing to “work with the States that develop it.” But what is not in this communication is an announcement of a common mechanism that would cover development in each country, as there was in 2022, despite the request from five European countries (Spain, Germany, Italy, Portugal, and Austria) to create a community framework to tax these extraordinary gains. “A common tax requires unanimity. It would not be easy to reach a consensus because there are different visions on how to address this issue,” explained the Spanish official.
In defense of the initiative presented this Wednesday, Ribera pointed out: “This communication aims to strengthen EU coordination and protect the most vulnerable, while accelerating the deployment of self-produced clean energy and electrification to achieve real and lasting change,” she argued. The Commission’s number two emphasized the importance of strengthening the application of non-polluting energies. “There is no alternative to the Green Deal when it comes to security and competitiveness,” Ribera highlighted, taking advantage of the fact that the crisis comes from the increase in oil and fossil fuel prices, to defend her position and her profile of commitment to a decarbonized economy.
In a similar vein, Energy Commissioner Dan Jorgensen stated: “Europe is facing a new fossil energy crisis. This must serve as a wake-up call and mark a turning point: it is time for Europe to abandon its dependence on fossil fuels and move towards clean energy autonomy.” Both Ribera and the Danish Commissioner are part of the social democratic family that defends the Green Deal and advocates not eroding it in the face of the geopolitical earthquake caused by US President Donald Trump, as a way to reduce European dependencies on major powers (China, the United States, and Russia).
Since the conflict began, President Von der Leyen, a German conservative, has also reiterated on several occasions that this crisis demonstrates that Europe must bet on energy sources that strengthen its autonomy: explicitly pointing to renewables and nuclear. Both have the advantage of deepening the decarbonization of the economy.
