What is water, asks the fish
One day an old fish met two young fish and asked them, "How is the water today? They answered: "Yes, everything's fine", and when the older one had left, one of the young fish asked the other: "Water? What is water?"
With this dialogue, Piet Holtrop begins his article published on 19 February 2020 in the magazine Energías Renovables, in which he illustrates the distortion of reality that is reflected in the European Commission's decision, arguing that the remuneration system of Royal Decree 661/2007 had not only been absorbed by the current remuneration system of Royal Decree 413/2014 (improper retroactivity) but had even disappeared entirely from the past (own retroactivity).
This decision has had a number of negative consequences for the representatives of Holtrop and that is why the proceedings to annul it were initiated with the cassation appeal, which was admitted by the Court of Justice under reference C-436/2019 P.
After the presentation of the appeal in June 2019, the very influential Royal Decree - Law 17/2019 was approved, which could be considered as a real interference of the Kingdom of Spain, in the exercise of its powers as a Legislating State, in a procedure in which it is a personally involved party. It really creates a very unique situation. In the same way, by means of the corresponding letter to the Court of Justice, an interim measure suspending the period granted to prove the withdrawal of the procedure C-436/2019 P itself before the Spanish public administration has been requested, in order to prevent the Spanish State, as a personally involved party, from overlapping with the capacity of the European Court of Justice to provide effective judicial protection.
The outcome of the appeal before the Court of Justice and the approval of the aforementioned interim measure will have a great legal and economic impact on the appellants, as well as on the renewable sector in Spain in general.