Spain violates half a dozen articles of the European Social Charter. According to a resolution of the European Committee of Social Rights, presented by El País and to which elDiario.es had access, the State has failed to protect families, minors and elderly people affected for more than four years by power outages in Cañada Real. and who face another freezing winter without electricity in the autonomous community that boasts of being the richest in the country which, in turn, boasts of being the fastest growing in the European Union , but which, according to this resolution, has not adopted “adequate measures” to “guarantee adequate housing” or to prevent people affected by diseases linked to the lack of supply.
Concretely, the Committee unanimously considers that Spain violates Article 31.1 of the Charter, which commits its signatories to “promote access to housing of sufficient quality”; and 11, which guarantees the right to health protection, affirming that the state has not done enough to eliminate the causes of poor health of these people or to prevent epidemic and endemic diseases.
The resolution goes further and emphasizes that the power cuts in Cañada Real particularly affect the youngest. In sectors 5 and 6, affected by the cessation of supplies, there live around 1,800 boys and girls to whom, according to the Council of Europe, the State has not guaranteed their right to education. Also to the elderly, who do not benefit from their right, recognized by Spain, to social protection and a life with dignity.
According to the document, “the government maintains that the intensive marijuana plantations located in these areas activate the security devices installed by the electricity company Naturgy and thus cause a permanent blackout of the network.” However, the administration has not resolved the problem for four years, which, according to the complainant organizations, “has had serious consequences on the lives of the residents” of La Cañada.
The resolution does not only focus on the rights violated by the Spanish state. It gives concrete examples of how this neglect affects families who are not protected against poverty or social exclusion, children who do not have access to quality education and vulnerable older people. Faced with the lack of electricity, “the households concerned had to purchase, within their means, alternative energy sources”. Used solar panels, heaters, butane stoves, stoves or candles, which according to the organization have caused “more than five fires and explosions with four serious injuries and the death of one man in 2023”, in addition to “25 poisonings caused by contamination by gasoline generators and two candle fires” during last winter.
The Council of Europe speaks out following a complaint presented by the workers’ committees, Defense for Children International, the European Federation of National Organizations Working with Homeless People, the European Association of Magistrates for Democracy and Freedom (Medel, by its acronym in Spanish). English) and ATD Fourth World. Specifically, the Committee admitted the complaint in October 2022 and requested the government to present the allegations by December 15 of the same year. The parties’ justifications were then extended until June 2023, including the observations of the third-party mediator.
The Council had then already asked, in 2022, the Spanish government to take “immediate measures” to resolve the electricity problems in La Cañada, without its request having practical repercussions. The resolution, to which this media had access, is already in the hands of the Executive and must be published, at the latest, February 26, 2025.
