Dozens of entities, including the Alliance Against Energy Poverty, have demonstrated this Saturday in Barcelona against the rise in the price of electricity. The march, which left the University Square and ended with the reading of a manifesto in Arc de Triomf, has gathered 1,800 people according to the Urban Guard. The protest was characterized by bringing together a heterogeneous audience of several generations.
The rise in the price of supplies will harm vulnerable families “in winter, when their situation will worsen, because with the cold, consumption increases by 20%,” the organization said in a statement. The march has been uneventful in a festive tone and into the night. Among the slogans chanted by the attendees, there were phrases such as “Endesa, Iberdrola, they are robbing the people” or one of the most repeated: “We want what is ours: water, electricity and a roof.”
Among the protesters have been activists from neighborhood associations, unions and also from the Platform for People Affected by Mortgages (PAH). One of the attendees, Guillem Capdevila, from the Raval Neighborhood Network, attended the protest to demand “that the electricity grid be managed by the public administration again and that the electricity be priced more fairly.” Capdevila recalled the mobilizations of a year ago in the neighborhood, when for a month the residents and merchants of Sant Antoni Abad street suffered power cuts “due to lack of investment in the infrastructure.”
From Vallcarca David Tinoco lamented the “very tough situations” that can cause for some families “to decide between eating, heating up or paying the rent”, and demanded “courage from the politicians”. In this sense, the organizers consider that “the measures proposed to alleviate the situation, such as the bonds promised by the Spanish government, are insufficient.”
The objective of the organizers, as they stated during the march, was to end the demonstration in front of the Endesa corporate headquarters on Vilanova Avenue, a few steps from Arc de Triomf. However, the street was blocked by police vans. After reading the manifesto and saying goodbye to the protest, a small group of protesters approached the police cordon with the intention of reaching the company headquarters; although they finally dissolved before the advance of the agents along Vilanova avenue.
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