With the end of August upon us, it will conclude as it began: with a new all-time record for the price of electricity in Spain, which this Monday is set at 124.45 euros per megawatt hour (MWh). While the fourth-ranked Spanish deputy PM, responsible for the ecological transition and demographic challenge, Teresa Ribera, says only that power prices will continue to rise until 2022 and floats the idea that perhaps a public energy company could be created, one comes to the easy conclusion that political marketing has done enormous harm in the solution of such things. The long-winded title of Ribera's position serves for nothing, as she is unable to give any response to the public alarm and concern, apart from offering a handful of commonplaces. Having reached this point, being a minister means very little.
It is worth remembering that just seven days ago the price per megawatt hour was below 100 euros and that at the end of 2020 it was around 42 euros. The fact that it has tripled in a year does not exactly reflect well on those responsible for ensuring that just such a thing does not happen, to avoid a situation where the Spanish public in general, and households in particular, can now only stand by and watch this unstoppable rise in the electricity price, which the political powers try to present to us as if it were a curse which no one can do anything about, and which is down to structural causes.
Governments are there to deal with emergencies, and if the charges for CO2 emissions or the price of natural gas have risen, it is to be expected that at Spain's rectangular cabinet table solutions will be debated so that the impact on the consumer is as little as possible. Of course, the action for which they will get most gratitude is to go to the Torrejón de Ardoz airbase to take photos that will appear in all the media, receiving those Afghans whom it has - fortunately - been possible to repatriate.
But politics also includes the photos that go with the rising electricity price and the finding of solutions for people who most need them. It is for that reason and no other that the only image we have seen of prime minister Pedro Sánchez after returning from a long vacation has been the one taken at Torrejón, following the advice of the spin doctors who look after this kind of thing down to the fine detail.
This Monday, deputy PM Ribera will appear in Congress and we will witness the crossfire of criticism between the government and the opposition. Because the electricity price, whether you like it or not, also means votes. Just like the Moroccan minors returned from Ceuta or, much closer to home, the dialogue table and the Diada.