The European Commission has just made a key decision in the battle between renewable funds and the Spanish government, in which around €1.7 billion are at stake. The European executive has concluded that an arbitration award requiring Spain to compensate Antin Infrastructure Services with €101 million for the modification of a support scheme for renewable electricity constitutes illegal state aid.
This decision means that Spain will not be able to execute or make any payments resulting from this award and could affect other intra-European processes, as explained by the Ministry of Ecological Transition. Spain has payment obligations of €1.478 billion and €357 million in interest, according to calculations made by the Independent Authority for Fiscal Responsibility (Airef), which are affected by the decision to declare the premiums for renewable energies illegal.
According to the European Commission, in June 2018, an arbitration court determined that Spain violated the Energy Charter Treaty (ECT) by modifying a regime established in 2007 to support electricity generation from renewable sources in 2013. Antin, an investor based in Luxembourg and the Netherlands, claimed damages due to the alteration of the regulatory framework and obtained the award that has now been vetoed by Brussels. Following an in-depth investigation initiated in July 2021, the European Commission has determined that this award constitutes state aid incompatible with the European internal market. Brussels emphasizes that intra-EU arbitrations—those in which a company from one member state sues another member state—violate the autonomy of the community legal order and the exclusive jurisdiction of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU).
