The Spanish right woke up at this mid-August point with a “great piece of news”: the extension until 2030 of the life of the Almaraz nuclear power plant (Cáceres), whose total shutdown was scheduled for 2028. In recent years, both the PP and Vox have made the continuity of Almaraz, due to its symbolism, their main banner to wave from the opposition in energy policy matters, which is why they now see the finally authorized extension as their own victory.
“We said it from day one,” wrote Alberto Núñez Feijóo on his social networks, in the same vein as Vox deputy José María Figaredo: “Years of pressure and efforts bear fruit.” Against the Executive’s clear commitment of Pedro Sánchez to replace nuclear energy with renewable sources, the right believes that the final approval of Almaraz’s continuity “proves them right” on this matter.
For Feijóo, the extension announced today is “good news” both for the Extremaduran families whose livelihood depends on the jobs generated by Almaraz and for what it means, in his view, for the future of the Spanish energy system: “Nuclear energy is essential to avoid new blackouts and to not depend on third parties.” The decision, according to popular sources, “represents the recognition of the failure of the Government’s energy policy,” and they add: “Whose consequences we all pay for with the total blackout our country suffered.” The blackout that Spain experienced in April 2025 revived the debate about the appropriateness of the energy grid increasingly depending on renewable sources, and served the right as an argument to demand the extension of the nuclear plants that were scheduled to close. Among them, and especially, Almaraz.
“The next Government will banish ideological sectarianism and guarantee its permanence beyond 2030,” Feijóo has promised, although under this premise he considers the approved extension “late and incomplete”. From the PP they demand the Government the “urgent cancellation” of the closure schedule planned for Almaraz and other Spanish nuclear plants.
The popular party has also criticized the Government for such a significant decision being announced today through its publication in the Official State Gazette (BOE), without prior notice. “In the middle of August so it doesn’t get much attention,” Feijóo hinted, and from Génova they directly say that the Executive wanted to make this decision “on the sly”.
In a tone similar to Feijóo’s, Figaredo has maintained that the “survival of Almaraz is essential for Spain’s energy system,” thus celebrating that the PSOE “retracts.” And so, making an exception to the permanent clash Vox has with the Executive, the deputy spoke today of “good news.”
The consensus opened today between the right and the Ministry for the Ecological Transition – of the PSOE, responsible for the extension – finds only Sumar opposed, which has already expressed its rejection of the decision made by the Government’s majority partner. Precisely, the alternative left has accused the socialists of “following the path of the far right.” A right that, this Friday and without precedent, has indeed given the green light to a decision of the Executive. Moncloa, however, has barely boasted about the approved extension.
