BRUSSELS, March 14 (EUROPA PRESS) -

The president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, has defended agreeing on the reform of the electricity market at the beginning of 2024, in any case before the European elections in May, after defending that it is a "mature" proposal that benefits the final consumer of affordable green energy production.

In an interview with Europa Press and a group of agencies from the European Newsroom, the leader of the Community Executive has indicated that the proposal that she presents this Tuesday for a new design of the electricity market reduces the impact of gas on the price of electricity and seeks to lower the consumer bill, in line with greater investment in renewable energy.

"We see that we have a spot market that works well, but we have to improve on long-term contracts," he said, referring to the new types of contracts contemplated by the Brussels initiative. "At the center of this reform are consumers, and the main objective of this reform is to bring the benefits of low-cost renewable energy closer to consumers," she added.

In Von der Leyen's opinion, the initiative to reform the electricity market is "well thought out and very mature", which is why he has asked to "work hard" to close it before the European elections in May 2024, thus setting a calendar for the Twenty-seven come to an agreement.

The objective of the reform is to increase the presence of renewables to the detriment of fossil fuels and facilitate long-term contracts to reduce price volatility to protect consumers, as Spain already defended in the approach that it presented to the Commission last January.

Faced with the structural reform proposal defended by countries like Spain, another bloc of seven countries led by Germany claims that the review of the electricity market be "limited" and that it maintain the benefits reported by the system in the last decade and without compromising the goals climatic. For this reason, a lengthy debate at the level of the Twenty-seven is predicted.

In any case, the deadlines that Von der Leyen defends coincide with those proposed by Spain, which is confident that the reform can be closed before the end of the current legislature.

On the proposal for a zero emission industry, another regulation that seeks to prevent business migration from Europe and achieve European self-sufficiency in the production of new technologies, the president of the European Commission has denied that the initiative has a protectionist desire despite the fact that responds to the plans of China and the United States, which intend to stand out with a millionaire 'doping' to their companies.

"It is a very open regulation, of course, by complying with our standards everyone can access the market. It is our decision to invest in the zero-emissions industry and facilitate the development of new clean technologies," he stated.

In this sense, he has highlighted that the main points of the law are to reduce the bureaucratic burden or the deadlines in the permit granting processes, "but there is no point that is protectionist, on the contrary, it is a very open law", he has reiterated the head of the community Executive.

All in all, Von der Leyen has defended that with the measures to make State aid more flexible or the law on critical raw materials to diversify EU imports of strategic raw materials, Brussels presents a package of industrial measures that show that " you can cut emissions and have a growth strategy".

"Now we see globally that there is a lot of momentum for the cleantech industry and we want to stay at the forefront," he summarized.