have Spain and Portugal obtained a derogation to temporarily exit the European electricity market?

While electricity prices are soaring all over Europe, Spain and Portugal are spared, which does not go unnoticed by French Internet users. Since June, the two countries have obtained a derogation from the European Commission: for a year, they leave the European system, and can set the price of their electricity themselves. This is not the case in the rest of Europe.

So that the countries of the Union can exchange electricity when they do not necessarily use the same means to produce it, the price of electricity is based on the most expensive means: gas power plants. Problem : with the surge in the price of gas since the russian invasion, the price of electricity has also exploded. To justify this derogation, Spain and Portugal put forward an argument to the Commission: the European model was unsuitable in their case.
“There is geographical isolation. It is a peninsula that has its own electricity market, let’s say relatively independent of Russian gas”explains Anna Cretiprofessor of economics at Paris Dauphine University. An argument of isolation that France could not make, because it imports electricity from Spain, the United Kingdom and Germany, and exports to Italy and Switzerland.