Pedro Sánchez is looking for new support for the Pyrenean route of the Midcat this Tuesday in Germany. Once France's no to the extension of the gas pipeline on Gallic soil has been obtained, the President of the Government will meet with the Teutonic Foreign Minister, Olaf Scholz, to certify their alliance in favor of promoting energy interconnections in the European Union.
Sánchez has been invited by his German counterpart to participate in an extraordinary session of his Council of Ministers in which, for two days, Berlin will address the national security strategy and the energy supply problems arising from the war in Ukraine.
The head of the Executive will attend the first of the two days, which will prevent him from presiding over the usual Tuesday meeting of the Council of Ministers. For this, he will travel to the town of Meseberg, about 70 kilometers from Berlin and whose castle has been the site chosen by the German chancellor to meet with his government. The same place where, in 2015, the then heads of government of the two countries, Angela Merkel and Mariano Rajoy, met.
Sánchez's meeting with Scholz and with all the German ministers comes at a time when Europe is trying to promote alternatives to guarantee its gas supply in the face of what the Prime Minister describes as "energy blackmail" by Vladimir Putin after the invasion of Ukraine.
Spain has been calling for gas interconnection with France for years through the Pyrenees (the so-called Midcat), a project that in the current situation is regaining prominence to the point that Scholz called for his support days ago so that Spanish natural gas can reach Germanas through the connection with the European network in Barbaira.
But it is an initiative that has always had the reluctance of France, which two weeks ago reiterated its opposition to this gas pipeline project that would connect its networks with the Spanish ones through Catalonia and that was abandoned in 2019 because it was estimated that it would be difficult to make profitable
According to Paris, the MidCat would not only be very expensive (more than 3,000 million euros), but its implementation would take years, it would not allow us to face the current energy crisis caused by the war in Ukraine and it is hardly justifiable now that the EU intends to dispense with hydrocarbons in the medium term.
Sánchez, on his recent Latin American tour, assured that he intends to persuade the French president, Emmanuel Macron, of the need for this interconnection, who recalled that it is part of the European Commission's plans and that it would have community funding.
But he warned that if France maintains its rejection, there is a plan B that is also among the Commission's alternatives: an energy interconnection between Spain and Italy.
Sánchez will talk about all this with the German ministers and with Scholz, whom he has thanked for publicly and clearly advocating for the gas pipeline between Spain and France which, if it were to become a reality, the Spanish Government stresses would also serve to transfer hydrogen green.
But the Meseberg meeting will not only be to talk about energy, but will also allow other issues on the European agenda to be dealt with and how to deal with more difficulties arising from the war in Ukraine.
Sánchez returns to Germany after meeting with Scholz in Berlin on March 18 as part of a tour of several European countries to defend a reform of the energy market to which the European Commission has already opened up and with the in order to lower the price of electricity.
A tour prior to the European summit in which the EU leaders agreed on the so-called "Iberian exception" so that Spain and Portugal could set a cap on the price of gas for electricity given the condition of the "energy island" of the Peninsula.
Sánchez and Scholz will meet again in Spain next October, since government sources state that a Spanish-German summit is scheduled to be held that month, which has not been convened for several years.
