The Government has started another year and another legislature with the National Energy Security Strategy expired since 2017. This is a document designed to protect the supply and shield key infrastructures for the entire country’s energy supply from threats. The current protocol was activated by the Government of Mariano Rajoy in 2015 and since then it has not been modified, despite the fact that the Executive of Pedro Sánchez began the review process four years ago, after admitting that the development of a new strategy was a matter of “Vital importance”.
Was Carmen Calvo, then Minister of the Presidency, who in October 2020 signed the order for the preparation of a new National Energy Security Strategy. She did not set a deadline to complete a task in which a dozen ministries were involved, from Ecological Transition and Transportation, to Defense and Foreign Affairs, in addition to the Department of National Security of the Cabinet of the Presidency of the Government and the National Intelligence Center (CNI). This medium has asked two of the ministries involved about the status of the process, which have not commented.
The greatest responsibility in the process fell on two departments. The first, the energy portfolio that he leads Teresa Riberawhich assumed responsibility for developing the new protocol through a Specialized Committee chaired by the Secretary of State for Energy, Sara Aagesen. The second, the Cabinet of the Presidency of the Government that he has headed since 2021 Oscar Lopez (then under the direction of Ivan Redondo), which coordinates the process through the National Security Council.
Already in 2017, the Government of Mariano Rajoy admitted that its energy protocol had become obsolete and this was reflected in the National Security Strategy of that year. The document, which is updated every five years, warned of Spain’s dependence on certain areas of Africa where geopolitical instability “puts supply in danger directly and could cause an increase in oil and gas prices“and concluded that the country was heading towards a new paradigm. Diagnosis? The energy protocol had to be reviewed.
But the motion of censure and Sánchez’s arrival at La Moncloa left the review on hold and it was not until three years later when the BOE collected the order that reactivated, only formally, the process. As of today, there is no news of an update that the National Security Strategy itself that the previous PSOE and Podemos Government approved in December 2021, a year in advance due to the pandemic, also considered necessary.