An official source from the Spanish Ministry for Ecological Transition, told Lusa that it is now intended to study other options that allow for greater unanimity of the 27 in a scheme to reduce the price in the single electricity market, without however explaining what they are.

The Portuguese Minister for the Environment and Climate Action, João Matos Fernandes, and the Minister for Ecological Transition, Teresa Ribera, announced last week that they would propose a limit of 180 euros per megawatt hour (MWh) for the daily wholesale market, to avoid the effect of rising electricity prices on businesses and households.

Matos Fernandes said last Tuesday that the proposal was to impose a maximum price of 180 euros per MWh on the 'spot' market (daily and intraday market) for electricity - which this month exceeded 500 euros per MWh for the first time.

The Portuguese minister indicated that the Portuguese-Spanish proposal could mean “a net monthly 'joint savings', shared between Portugal and Spain, of 5,700 million euros [ME], for a monthly gas cost of 1,250 ME”, being that “ the net monthly 'Portuguese savings' would be around 1,100 ME, for a monthly gas cost of around 250 ME”.

The maximum price of 180 euros/MWh was a reference that existed in Spanish and Portuguese regulations until 2019, when a European directive prohibited the maintenance of maximum limits for the offers of electricity companies in the wholesale market.

The Spanish Minister for Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge, Teresa Ribera, considered last Thursday that, if only two years ago the reference price of 180 euros/MWh "seemed like madness that would never be reached and today it is largely outdated ", it is "little debatable that it should be the maximum limit that we must accept in our market".

The reform of the electricity market is advocated by southern European countries, specifically with regard to decoupling the price of gas from the electricity market, since in the marginal market the most expensive offer that charges the price every hour is the which sets the price charged by all others.

However, most northern countries do not share the position of changing the market.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said on Friday that at the European Council "there will be an exchange of information on national strategies", which seems to point to a different point of view of the reform of the electricity market.