The Spanish government wants to exclude large families with high incomes from the social electricity tariff. This is outlined in the Spanish strategy against energy poverty 2026-2030, which the Council of Ministers approved on Tuesday, according to ministry sources. This strategy aims to work with stakeholders in the sector to ensure that families entitled to this discount on their electricity bills receive it, while also changing the current situation in which many high-income households receive it. The strategy will stipulate that the conditions and criteria for the social electricity tariff include a link to household income, to ensure "that it reaches those who need it most," according to the ministry. However, to implement this reform, the Spanish government will have to amend a royal decree and establish the income criterion specifically for large families. Currently, families with large family status can access the electricity social bonus regardless of their income level (income is only taken into account in the case of large families recognized as severely vulnerable, thus receiving greater assistance), as is the case with other social policies that offer discounts for holding this status. Who receives this bonus?

The electricity social voucher grants discounts on electricity bills to low-income consumers who have a regulated electricity tariff, known as PVPC. Depending on the consumer's vulnerability, the discounts range from 42.5% for vulnerable profiles to 57.5% for severely vulnerable consumers. In addition, families benefiting from this electricity social voucher also receive the thermal social voucher, a direct annual payment that depends on the climate zone and ranges from €25 to €400. According to data from the Ministry for Ecological Transition, coverage of the social voucher has grown by 60% between 2018 and 2025, increasing from 1.07 million households to 1.72 million. The new strategy against energy poverty has four pillars. The first is the creation of an energy poverty observatory to centralize and maintain information on the subject and to exchange knowledge among experts. The second pillar, aimed at consumer protection, has four measures: guaranteeing supply to vulnerable and electro-dependent individuals; improving coverage of the social tariff, which has grown by 60% since 2018, from 1.07 million households to 1.72 million currently; facilitating access to the social tariff by eliminating commercial practices such as penalties for early termination for consumers who switch to the regulated tariff (PVPC) with a social tariff; and requiring written confirmation when a consumer with a PVPC and social tariff wishes to leave the system.

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Two social meters every week. In just over four years, only 108 in all of Catalonia, according to the company Endesa. The solution to prevent vulnerable families from losing electricity due to their inability to pay has been a failure, as an estimated one million people suffer. energy poverty, approximately 20% of the population.

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It's been getting dark for an hour, but Nati and her neighbor Nora are reluctant to go up to the apartment they share with their husbands and children. "If we could bring the mattress down to the street, we'd sleep better," Nati says, laughing, as she yells at the children because they still have dinner. It's 10:30 at night, and a huge thermometer in a corner still reads 31°C, but they say the temperature inside the house is even worse.

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Restore and consolidate the tax cuts adopted during the COVID-19 pandemic and the energy crisis that arose at the start of the war in Ukraine. This is one of the main proposals of the Roundtable of Third Sector Social Entities of Catalonia to combat energy poverty. The Roundtable has prepared a new dossier, Energy as a right: a social challenge in the face of energy poverty, prepared by the Ecoserveis Association in collaboration with the ARA (Argentine Association of Hydrocarbons) and the Social Hub.

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More than 47 million Europeans suffer from a lack of adequate heating at home during the winter, and 10 million of them are in Spain. The coldest countries are not the most affected by the situation: the worst affected are Portugal (with 20.8% of the population affected), Spain and Bulgaria (20.7%) and Greece (20%). The analysis carried out by ARA and the CORRECTIV.Europe network of journalists confirms this trend according to the most recent data available, from 2023.

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In recent times we have had plenty of chances to hear about the excellent Madrid as a paradise of "freedom" and the engine of economic growth in the state. The cracks have been evident for some time, especially during the pandemic, but it is not new that there is another Madrid, unequal and poor, which does not appear in grandiloquent speeches.

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This October, families with regulated electricity tariffs have paid the most expensive price in history. According to the Organization of Consumers and Users (OCU), the average wholesale price has been €204.09, and, therefore, an average family will have, for the first time, paid over €100 in its electricity bill. Although in recent days it seems that the price is going down – albeit staying well above previous years – the truth is that trying to save by looking at the price fluctuations according to the time of day is an almost impossible task for the average consumer. The famous off-peak hours, when electricity is cheaper, oscillate, and, for example, in these last few days have been more in the afternoon rather than at night. But this does not mean that this will always be the case.

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The collateral effects of the covid-19 pandemic, still painfully among us, are like ivy covering the entire façade of our cracked social edifice. The metaphor is pertinent because housing is, right now, one of the greatest weak points. We had already come from a precarious situation, the result of the economic crisis of 2008, which had become bogged down and has now only worsened due to the economic ravages also caused by the coronavirus. The moratorium on evictions for people in social emergency situations has managed to stop the blow, but if, as planned, it ends with the end of the state of alarm on May 9, we will come across a new wave of homeless people difficult to manage. Many families will face the threat of becoming homeless with the end of the furlough scheme and the self-employed aid, measures that, if there is no further extension, will expire around the same time, on May 31.

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In the midst of paralysis and uncertainty due to the lack of agreement to form a government, this Monday there has been a historic commitment in the field of social rights: the electricity company Endesa has become the first to sign an agreement with the Generalitat and the four provincial councils to jointly assume the unpaid bills of 35,000 vulnerable families. Under the agreement, which is an offshoot of the decree 24/2015 against energy poverty, Endesa will write off 73% of the debt, while the rest will be paid by the administrations. The Minister for Labour and Social Affairs, Chakir el Homrani, has expressed his confidence that the rest of the distribution companies will end up joining the measure.

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Since 2015, the Catalan law on energy poverty has prevented supply companies from cutting off electricity to vulnerable families. In all this time, however, public administrations and companies have not specified who has to take charge of the unpaid bills. This, in practice, has caused the debt to grow to €38.7m, according to Endesa. This Monday, however, a historic agreement has been announced after years of tug-of-war between the parties involved: a formula has been found to write off the over 35,000 families's debt with the utility company.

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