The order of the President of the Government on Endesa was presented with the aim of “conditioning the payment of invoices issued” by the Spanish electricity company to the services of the direct and indirect administration of the State. However, the intention is only “preventive”, says the official source from São Bento. This Wednesday, in a response sent to the Observer on the legal doubts raised by the experts, the prime minister’s office went so far as to guarantee that “There is no change in the contract”. The purpose of the order is, above all, to give a signal to companies to check Endesa’s invoices, as the State will do from now on.
To the Observer, Costa’s office says that “there is a change regarding the internal payment validation procedure, preventive against possible speculative practices”. This hypothesis materialized, in the opinion of the Government, after the president of Endesa, Nuno Ribeiro da Silva, came to estimate an increase “of the order of 40% or more” in the July and August bills of electricity consumers. due to the application of the Iberian Mechanism that curbed the price of natural gas used for the production of electricity.
Ribeiro da Silva’s interview had as its first reactions the denial of the Ministry of the Environment, the guarantee of ERSE, the energy regulator, to be attentive to the behavior of the electricity marketers and an apparent withdrawal of the president of Endesa himself. Through a statement, the power company promised to fulfill the contracts.
However, the text was seen as insufficient within the Government, since Endesa only guaranteed “to maintain the contractual prices with its residential customers in Portugal until the end of the year”. Commercial and industrial customers were not mentioned. “The company only referred, in its statement, to the residential sector”, he pointed out in the Government.
This is where the office arrives that experts contacted by the Observer considered to raise some legal questions. Not so much because of the internal procedure created (prior approval of payments by Secretary of State João Galamba), but because of the effect it produces, by introducing a new rule in the middle of a contract and the payment of services already rendered. One of the experts even pointed out the importance of not being affected by “contractual deadlines”.
the first Minister disagree with this interpretation and now guarantees that none of this implies changes in what was contracted. The decision is mainly aimed at avoiding abusive behavior by Endesa in particular, and the Government’s expectation is that “the regulator and all customers adopt mechanisms to verify their invoices” of the services provided by the company, a member of the Executive comments to the Observer.
The Iberian Mechanism is far from being peaceful and the PSD parliamentary group asked the ERSE on Wednesday to analyze this instrument “explaining and substantiating the respective assumptions that, in terms of the evolution of prices and other factors, must be based on the best practices and available information. and be suitable for the specific conditions and structure of the Portuguese market”.
They fear the impacts that the application of the Mechanism may have on the electricity bill, by compensating gas plants for the price cap imposed on the Iberian market since June.” The ERSE has already guaranteed that “it will be mainly the industrial companies that will be called upon to pay” this same compensation.
Costa’s office on Endesa raises legal questions
Source: Observadora
