Spain is left alone in defending MidCat as a solution to the European energy crisis – El Mundo

The Government closed ranks this Tuesday with the third vice president, Teresa Ribera, in its defense of MidCat as a possible solution to the energy crisis that has plagued Europe since the outbreak of the war in Ukraine. The Industry Minister, Reyes Maroto, and the Spokesperson Minister, Isabel Rodríguez, shared her position and even congratulated her for leading the debate in Brussels, but the jug of cold water from the European Commission was not long in coming. In a clear pulse with the French president, Emmanuel Macron, Minister Ribera pointed out in an interview on Onda Cero that the gas pipeline project that would link Spain with Europe through Gallic soil “is not a strictly bilateral issue” and that “predictably it will be addressed on Friday at the Council of EU Energy Ministers”. “France must think about how to help others,” he came to say to the neighboring country, alluding to the electricity it is receiving from five other states, including Spain, so that it can face the problems it suffers from having a large part of its electricity. its nuclear plant stopped since January. The third vice president now wants to place the MidCat as a possible solution to the energy supply problems that the continent has suffered since Vladimir Putin ordered the gas tap to be closed and, for this, bases its strategy on convincing the community countries that tomorrow it will be possible to transport hydrogen through this gas pipeline, a fuel of the future. “We have listened to Chancellor Scholz and Macron and it is pertinent to have a debate on what the defense of the European market represents when we talk about the pooling of infrastructures, also thinking that they serve for the future, not only that they transport natural gas but that they can transport hydrogen in the future, and if this investment must be anticipated, it must be debated for community reasons. We must see the alternatives and where the difficulties of France are or may be, which obviously has difficulties,” Ribera said at the subsequent press conference to the Council of Ministers. The minister hopes to count on next Friday’s summit with the express support of Germany, which has already appealed to the usefulness of this instrument to supply gas to the continent and seems willing to help Spain to convince France. The latter, however, is reluctant for several reasons. On the one hand, because becoming a gas carrier will make its sales of nuclear energy less attractive and, on the other, because it would have to face expensive investments to send the gas to the north of France and from there to the rest of the countries. Macron has assured that new gas interconnections with Spain are not necessary because the current ones are far from saturation and that MidCat is not justified for energy and environmental reasons. “It is about using the infrastructures to pool the complementary capacity of different countries. When there are equal interests, it’s easier,” said Ribera, alluding to France’s reticence. “But it is an exceptional moment and this deserves a more in-depth debate. This infrastructure is considered linked to the transport of hydrogen and for later, so it should have the support of European interests and have European financing,” she claimed. The Minister for Industry, Trade and Tourism, Reyes Maroto, yesterday also defended the “need” to make “MidCat available to Europe to stop (Vladimir) Putin’s blackmail.” “We have to use all the capacities that the current system has, but it is necessary to put this proposal on the table to guarantee the energy supply to the European Union,” he added. Lack of support from Brussels However, despite the fact that the Government believes it has With the support of Berlin and hoping to receive some gesture from the European Commission, this Tuesday it clearly put its profile on the issue, ruling out interfering, pressuring or positioning itself even a little. The issue has been a problem in Brussels for weeks. There are those in favor of a more active role, there are those who believe that the Commission should advocate much more clearly for the project, but the line that is imposed is that of distance. There will be community money for the project if all parties agree, and that is why the governments of Emmanuel Macron and Pedro Sánchez are encouraged to reach an understanding. But until then, nothing. There are some technical doubts and also memory among those who remember that Vice President Ribera was, until the day before yesterday, one of the biggest skeptics about the idea. “We cannot offer a specific position at this time,” the Energy spokesman for the Commission, Tim McPhie. “It is necessary that the Member States and the promoters of the idea advance in the analysis of the viability of the project and then we can already give our opinion on a precise project,” he added. The message is very clear. It is not being against the Midcat, far from it. But the Commission, perfectly aware of the Spanish position and, above all, of French misgivings, does not want to go much further. Their role is very marked and although the line in the community capital goes through betting on interconnections, and especially in that of energy islands such as the Iberian Peninsula, they are not going to spend political capital or much time in a fight like this.” Any new cross-border infrastructure project linking the Iberian Peninsula with the rest of the EU needs additional evaluations from the states involved and the promoters of the project, which is why the Commission cannot take a position,” McPhie reiterated, insisting before the questions from Spanish correspondents that MidCat is not part of the Union’s list of Projects of Common Interest (PIC). Macron, as he made clear on Monday, believes that MidCat will not solve the current problems of the continent, which is expensive and environmentally harmful. And he has challenged Pedro Sánchez to convince him of the contrary, to provide him with data so that he changes his opinion. His obsession is electrical connections, not gas, and for that he is finalizing a solidarity agreement with Germany, with which both things can be exchanged when the hardest moments arrive or there are emergencies. The community spokesman, from a technical and legal, not political, has highlighted that community legislation has become more restrictive these years, so in principle most projects based on fossil fuels cannot be financed with European funds. like gas. “What could potentially be financed are hydrogen infrastructure projects. They could have low PIC status as priority hydrogen corridors,” he stressed. An option that has been considered but that hardly convinces anyone, since it seems like a workaround, a patch, with little to do. At a general level, the European Commission’s Energy spokesman has insisted that any new investment liquefied natural gas (LNG) from the Iberian Peninsula with the European gas network through “hydrogen-ready” infrastructures could “contribute to further diversify the supply of gas in the internal market” and “help in the future potential of green hydrogen ” from Spain and Portugal and North Africa. But the situation right now is far from that point and in the best of cases it would take years to complete the works. Spain now seems especially interested, and pressuring, but until a few months ago the Executive was against it, for reasons not very different from those of France and because it considered that the commitment should be for renewables, not for anything related to fossil fuels. Friday there will be an extraordinary meeting of the 27 Energy Ministers to address the Russian supply cut, the European Commission’s proposals to reduce consumption and put limits on the prices of renewables, among other things. And there will be time for the vice president to meet with her French colleagues and her institutions to see what possibilities there are in the short term. According to the criteria of The Trust Project Learn more