ANPIER, National Association of Renewable Energy Producers and Investors, will promote a people”s initiative, under Organic Law 3/1984 of March 26, Regulatory of the Legislative Initiative, to facilitate the implementation in Spain of a reliable, sustainable and transparent energy model in harmony with the guidelines set by the European Union (Strategy 2020) and that includes the most advanced models implemented in the world, as that developed by Germany, whose nuclear plant will cease their activity within 9 years.
This initiative was developed in collaboration with other state level representing associations: professionals, consumers and environmentalists, who will form a Promotion Committee, which will seek broad public support through open days in all major country’s capital cities between the end September to December, in a process of analysis, debate and input, leading to a solid text to be presented as a legislative proposal. From this moment, authenticated signatures will start to be collected by at least 500,000 voters within 9 months, a necessary condition for the Bureau to order the publication of the legislative proposal which should be included in the agenda of the plenary for its consideration at the latest within six months.
The Organic Law regulating this type of initiative states that it shall be used “to propose to the legislative authority the adoption of rules whose need is widely felt by the electorate, but nevertheless, find no echo in the political parties with parliamentary representation.”
Key proposals of the draft under preparation by ANPIER envisage:
• The development of an energy model based on renewable energy: sustainable, reliable, indigenous and efficient, that furthermore contributes to avoiding our production competitiveness decline, balance of payments imbalances and geopolitical dependences.
• The transparency of tender procedures and energy prices setting. To fight from the origin against the so-called tariff deficit so that adequate returns to each type of energy generation are provided.
• Fee to nuclear power generation. This energy is very cheap to generate, but the citizen pays it the same price as the other energies, when there is a non- chosen risk. Law 12/2011 of 27 May on Civil Liability for Nuclear Damage, stands at € 1,200 million the higher compensation that nuclear facilities operators must pay in Spain, while it is estimated that the total economic cost of Chernobyl disaster, including a 30 years mitigation period, is of 235,000 million dollars and the Japanese authorities placed at 7,500 million dollars the first costs of compensation to victims of the Fukushima disaster, without computing the human and environmental tragedy.
• Legal security. Essential for the sector development and for Spain to regain investor confidence with a legal framework of certainty that does not include retroactive regulations, as was the case of the Royal Decree 1565/2010 and Royal Decree Law 14/2010.
ANPIER president, Miguel Angel Martinez-Aroca, considers that “such initiatives are very healthy for democracy and progress of our society, which was used to playing a passive- reactive role and now, should have a committed and proactive attitude, but in an orderly manner, using existing channels to this purpose. ”
Aroca Martinez believes that getting the signatures will not be a problem and that the text being prepared by the committee chaired by ANPIER is being developed by producers, technicians and expert engineers as well as in collaboration with other associations and citizens, and will offer an extraordinary document, which must be responsibly processed by the legislative authority.
