Nadal brothers corner Soria as Rajoy weighs government reshuffle

José Manuel Soria, Spain's energy minister, had run out of friends. By late March 2014, the two most powerful economic voices in Mariano Rajoy's government—brothers Alberto and Álvaro Nadal—had turned decisively against him, and the bridges between them had collapsed entirely over a single, rushed decision about electricity prices.

The conflict centered on a royal decree that Soria had pushed through the Council of Ministers with unusual speed, designed to take effect on April 1st. The new system would replace the old quarterly price-setting mechanism with hourly price quotations, a change Soria framed as a consumer victory. He had announced the previous week that electricity companies would refund 300 million euros to customers because the previous auction system had overcharged them. The decree, he argued, proved his competence and delivered results.

But the technical experts saw it differently. Alberto Nadal, serving as State Secretary for Energy, and the ministry's technical team, led by energy director Jaime Suárez, had warned Soria repeatedly that the system could not actually function. The electricity distributors and retailers were not ready. The monitoring systems for hourly prices did not exist. The electronic meters required for the new mechanism had not been installed widely enough. The billing and management infrastructure was incomplete. Several months—perhaps until year's end—would be needed to make the decree workable. Nadal and his team had urged Soria to wait, to establish a transition period, to let the sector prepare. Soria refused.

His refusal was not technical but political. Soria's standing in Rajoy's cabinet had deteriorated. He had clashed with Finance Minister Cristóbal Montoro and been sidelined in negotiations with the electricity sector. With European elections scheduled for May 25th, Soria needed a visible victory. He needed to show Rajoy that he could deliver. The decree, rushed and flawed as it was, became his gamble—a way to demonstrate control and competence before his position weakened further.

But the gamble exposed him to a more dangerous threat. Álvaro Nadal, who ran the Economic Office of Moncloa—the prime minister's inner sanctum—had also opposed the rush. Electricity executives had explained to him that forcing an untested system into operation made no sense. The two brothers, now aligned against Soria, represented something larger than a policy dispute. They represented the future shape of Rajoy's government.

Alberto Nadal, observers noted, was positioning himself to replace Soria at the Energy Ministry. Álvaro was aiming higher still—at the Economy Ministry currently held by Luis de Guindos. Both brothers were young, intellectually formidable, ambitious, and increasingly powerful. They formed a tandem not just of blood but of influence, comparable in trajectory to Vice President Soraya Sáenz de Santamaría. If Rajoy reshuffled his cabinet before the European elections, or more likely afterward in the summer before the 2015 general elections, the Nadals were positioned to ascend. One in Industry, one in Economy—the scenario had gained credibility in recent months.

Soria's rushed decree, technically unworkable and opposed by the Nadals, consumer groups, and the electricity sector itself, would eventually require amendment with a transition period. But by then, the political damage was done. Soria had weakened himself further, and the Nadals had consolidated their position. The minister from the Canary Islands, once imagining himself as a contender for higher office, now faced the possibility of returning home to challenge his rival Paulino Rivero for the regional presidency. The decree took effect on April 1st as scheduled. The real reckoning would come later.