The local Branch of the IU has put its weight behind a nationwide initiative for a protest blackout tonight.

The consumers’ rights organization, FACUA Consumers in Action, are behind the move, which is scheduled to take place between 19.00h and 20.00h tonight.

According to the IU, the objective is to get a message through to the Central Government over this latest 2.5% price increase to the monthly electricity bill. They want to change the actual system where by the price is arrived at by auctioning generating capacity, meaning that is the large companies – who often have nothing to do with the energy generated – who set the prices.

Another push behind this protest blackout is to get the Government to forbid families without economic recourse having their electricity cut off over the winter months for failing to pay their monthly bills. This has already been called for but the Government rejected it. Such ‘safety nets’ however, are already in place in other European countries.

The IU considers it unacceptable that on the same day that the Government freezes the minimum wage, it puts up electricity by nearly three percent.

Stop Press: the ‘protest’ came and went without making much difference to the national energy consumption, but the protest was only meant to be symbolic anyway, say the organizers.

I dutifully turned off the power at the main fuse at 19.00h, throwing my router into a fit, and walked out through dazzling streets… It was not as the if towns governed by the PP were going to support the move by turning off their Christmas lights, was it.

(News: Almunecar, Costa Tropical, Granada, Andalucia)