Sánchez hopes to convince France about the MidCat and "guarantees" Algerian gas supply

13 (EUROPE PRESS)

The President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, hopes to “convince” France of the possibility of increasing gas interconnections with France, in reference to the MidCat gas pipeline, and has also stressed that gas from Algeria “is guaranteed” despite the “discord” due to Western Sahara, as stated this Tuesday in an interview on TVE collected by Europa Press.

Regarding the French Government’s opposition to the completion of MidCat, the Chief Executive stressed that it is not a bilateral issue between the two countries, but rather a “European issue” and that Spain’s position is that of ” show solidarity” with the European Union (EU) partners that are most dependent on Russian gas, such as Germany, for example.

Along these lines, he highlighted that 10% of the gas consumed in Europe at the moment comes from Spain. Specifically, 7% corresponds to that which arrives in the form of liquefied natural gas (LNG) through methane tankers from the United States (USA) and the other 3% corresponds to that which comes from gas pipelines.

In addition, he has insisted that Spain has 30% of the EU’s regasification capacity and that this infrastructure must be used to support the rest of the European partners.

Regarding the situation with Algeria, Sánchez has assured that the supply of gas from the African country is assured because its government has said that “Spain is a reliable partner”.

PP ENERGY PROPOSALS

Sánchez has also valued the package of proposals on energy matters that the Popular Party (PP) has sent to the Government on Monday, which includes initiatives such as discounting electricity and gas bills for those households and SMEs that reduce their consumption.

“It is evident that the proposals that are being made known by the Popular Party, and particularly its opposition to the Iberian mechanism, (…) if they represent something, it is, on the one hand, a certain insolvency and a defense, I would say even desperate , of some particular interests of the large energy companies”, the leader of the Executive has disfigured the main opposition party.

In this sense, the majority of Congress has endorsed this Tuesday the new taxes on large energy companies and banks to tax the alleged extraordinary profits that the main companies in those sectors would be obtaining in the current situation and that were raised by PSOE and United We Can during the debate on the admission of the initiative, which has provoked the rejection of PP, Vox and Ciudadanos.

Regarding the rejection of the PP, the president has emphasized that the main opposition party “is not that it has voted against these taxes on the extraordinary benefits of financial institutions and large energy companies, it is that it has even refused to discuss it in Parliament”.

“That right now there are energy prices like the ones we are having benefits the large energy entities,” Sánchez defended, who immediately stated that he had “nothing against the large energy or financial companies.”

“What’s more, I am proud that we have leading companies in the world in these areas. What I do say is that in energy crises or in a tightening of monetary policy (…) there are companies that benefit more than others (…) It is time for them to shoulder their shoulders”, he added.

“BRUSSELS ASSUMES THE POSTULATES OF SPAIN”

The president also highlighted that, in his opinion, “there is no more credible country than Spain” in terms of energy in Europe at the moment because the European Commission “finally assumes many of the postulates” that the Government “has been defending since a year ago”.

“In September of last year we already began to say that we had to intervene in the electricity market, we already said that we had to cap some prices that were beginning to not have a rational evolution (…) and also that we had to articulate measures in defense of the middle and working class”, he underlined.

In this sense, the president of the European Commission, Ursula Von der Leyen, will present this Wednesday a legislative proposal with the emergency energy measures to face the high prices of energy in the community market.

Among them, a mandatory reduction in electricity consumption at peak hours or limit the extraordinary benefits of inframarginal electricity producers and from fossil fuels, although it postpones putting a cap on gas imports.