The goats of the Pyrenees have been invited to Paris to discuss the energy interconnections between France and the Iberian Peninsula with the President of the Republic. If the agreement is fulfilled, the meeting should take place immediately, before the European Council meeting next Thursday and Friday.
In France, however, things have been complicated by the strike at Total Energie, the large French energy company, the largest company in the euro zone. Employees of the maintenance service of five nuclear power plants have joined the strike. The CGT has announced that railway workers and civil servants will also go on strike on Tuesday. There are airs of a general strike in France. The wave of the yellow vests returns on the eve of the unforgettable winter of 2023.
The meeting will take place, even if it takes a while. And it is interesting to observe the change of language of Emmanuel Macron in a month. At the beginning of September, the French president reluctantly dismissed the Spanish and Portuguese proposal, with German support, to resume work on the Midcat gas pipeline. "We are not going to jump like goats from the Pyrenees on that gas pipeline believing that it is going to solve the gas problem," said Macron, recalling an expression of President Charles De Gaulle that became very popular in the sixties. In the course of a debate with François Mitterrand in 1964, the general exclaimed the following: "We can jump on a chair like goats, shouting: Europe, Europe, Europe! But this is useless and means nothing." The goat as a symbol of a useless and rustic stubbornness.
A month after comparing Pedro Sánchez and Portuguese Prime Minister António Costa to the stubborn goats of the Pyrenees, Macron invites them to Paris to discuss energy interconnections and seek a "European solution". The appointment was announced on Friday of last week, October 7, at the end of the informal European summit held in Prague. The day before, Sánchez had received in A Coruña the explicit support of the German Federal Chancellor Olaf Scholz for the resumption of the Midcat in the course of the first bilateral meeting between the governments of Spain and Germany in thirteen years. “We do not consider that gas pipeline ruled out,” said the foreign minister. Macron took note and changed tactics. Sánchez, who does not want to find himself in a dead end, also asked for a three-way date.
These are days of warnings and signs. The day before yesterday, the two Pyrenean goats were photographed with Scholz at the Federal Chancellery, with the Reichstag in the background, taking advantage of their trip to the German capital to participate in the European Socialist Party congress.
The German government also issues messages. In Berlin, they are revising the maps in a hurry, looking for new suppliers and counting on the Iberian Peninsula as an energy support platform for a future that is already here. An immediate future in which Russia will cease to be the Texas of the great industry of central Europe and northern Italy, unless the war in Ukraine has an unexpected and difficult to imagine ending: a sudden withdrawal of Russian troops, the collapse of the Vladimir Putin regime and its replacement by a pro-European government with which major strategic agreements could be re-established.
The war can be long. Putin is in trouble, but it is not easy for him to fall. And in the event of a power crisis in Moscow, the hypothesis of a pro-European government is today the most unlikely. Russia is ceasing to be the Texas of Europe and this forces us to rethink everything. All. That is the question when we talk about Midcat: the definition of the new energy networks, the rhythms of the energy transition, the balances of power between the national states of the European Union and the slow and complicated definition of a common energy policy, which necessarily has to reckon with North Africa. The puzzle is colossal.
Germany is very uneasy because its economic strength, based on cheap gas from Russia, is at stake. France is uneasy because it sees great potential for its nuclear industry, but it has too many plants with serious maintenance problems. Spain and Portugal do not feel marginal in the new cartography and want to break the barrier of the Pyrenees. And Italy, half Atlanticist, half Russophile, is about to inaugurate a government whose motto will be “Italy first”.
The appointment in Paris does not mean that Macron is going to accept the resumption of the Midcat. (The platform of social opposition to the gas pipeline has been reactivated and its spokespersons speak French). Elíseo has seen that he was wrong with the forms. He underestimated the heads of government of Spain and Portugal and played down his interests too much. Macron will try to turn this perception on its head. European narrative, without renouncing the national interest, that he places his nuclear industry at the center of the new energy map, also as a future hydrogen manufacturer.
Ideas that are outlined as an alternative to Midcat. An underwater connection between the ports of Barcelona and Marseille, which would jeopardize the Italian project for a gas pipeline between Barcelona and Livorno, which has the support of Giorgia Meloni. Or a clear commitment to the Barcelona-Livorno gas pipeline, following a political pact with the new Italian government. What to do with the Italy of Meloni, Salvini and Berlusconi? That is a great topic for Macron. That is a great topic for Sánchez. Here's another headache for Scholz.
The novelty is that the goats of the Pyrenees have been invited to Paris.
