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Brussels (AFP) – Spain, Portugal and France have agreed to develop a “green energy corridor” that would connect Barcelona and Marseille, replacing the Midcat gas pipeline project, the head of the Spanish government, Pedro Sánchez, announced on Thursday.
“The three governments have reached an agreement to replace the Midcat project with a new project, which will be called the green energy corridor that will link the Iberian Peninsula to France,” Sánchez said upon arriving at a summit of European leaders. in Brussels.
According to the Spanish leader, it is about implementing “a pipeline for green hydrogen, but also, during the transition, for the gas needed by the European energy market between Barcelona and Marseille”.
For Sánchez, it is a “magnificent decision.”
For his part, the Prime Minister of Portugal, António Costa, told the press that it is “a pipeline dedicated to green hydrogen” but that eventually it could also be used for natural gas.
This December 9, the three leaders will meet to further define the agreement
The leaders of the three countries will meet again in Alicante on December 9.
Until that date, said the Portuguese president, it will be possible to “define the details” of this interconnection from the technical point of view.
In Alicante, the three presidents will have to concentrate on the “deadline for investment, the distribution of costs and the volume of resources”.
The Midcat gas pipeline was planned to connect Spain with France through Catalonia.
The MidCat falls definitively to welcome the BarMar, gas pipeline connecting Barcelona and Marseille. Great day for the future of Spanish green hydrogen and another European success in energy matters for the Iberian alliance. But why not MidCat, BarMar yes? Mini?
– Isabel Valverde (@isa_valgreen) October 20, 2022
The project began to be built in 2010 but the works were practically paralyzed in 2018, after a critical report from the European Commission (executive arm of the European Union).
As a result of the profound energy crisis that is shaking the block and that has worsened dramatically since the beginning of the Russian offensive on Ukraine, Spain sought to recover the project, but the idea did not overcome the scant interest of Paris, which did not see viability in the project. economic.
This Thursday, Sánchez, Costa and the French president, Emmanuel Macron, held a tripartite meeting in Brussels that allowed the announcement before a European summit under pressure to find concrete solutions to the energy crisis.
During a summit of European leaders held in Prague in October, Macron had suggested holding that meeting in Paris, but the three leaders decided to talk this Thursday in the Belgian capital.
Spain currently has six liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminals to process gas that arrives by sea, which could help the EU boost imports with a better connection.
But it only has two low-capacity links to France’s gas network, which has connections to the rest of Europe.
