The Third Vice President of the Government, Teresa Ribera, confirmed on Tuesday that Spain will continue to defend the proposal to move forward with the construction of Midcat at the next European meeting of Energy Ministers to be held next Friday.
During his appearance at the press conference after the Council of Ministers, Ribera assured that the Government will continue to defend the Midcat as a key infrastructure to respond to the energy needs of European countries this winter and next, despite the refusal of France and the decision of the European Commission to circumscribe the future of this infrastructure to the interests of both countries.
“It is good to discuss the different proposals that countries have to respond to the energy needs that are being raised, but we must remember that the infrastructure that Spain defends is an interconnection in the future that will allow the channeling of gas in the short term but that will be ready for hydrogen in the future”, assured Ribera on the eve of the great energy debate that will face Pedro Sánchez and Alberto Núñez Feijóo in the Senate.
Like the Commission, the Spanish minister has recognized that although the project was left out of the list of projects of Community Interest, it is included in the annex of important infrastructures Repower EU that the European Union adopted to address the impact of the war. “It is not so much about looking for the literal meaning of the words, but about looking at the future objectives”, Ribera insisted.
Since 2013 and every two years, the European Commission has drawn up a list of projects of common interest (PCI) whose purpose is to connect the energy systems of the Member States. So far, five lists have been drawn up in which the European PCIs have been established. The Midcat appears in three of them (2013, 2015 and 2017), but in 2019 it ceased to be part of these projects. The latest list, published in 2021, does not include the gas pipeline as PCI either.
But everything changes with the Russian occupation in Ukraine and the position of the European Union regarding MidCat as well, defends the Spanish Government. The Commission presented in May to the rest of the community authorities the REPowerEU plan, in which, in effect, it specifies the need for "a limited additional gas infrastructure (...) to complement the existing PCI list and fully compensate for the future loss of Russian gas imports. It is not a simple matter, but the Sánchez Executive considers that it has reasons to continue fighting to achieve it. They believe they have the support of Central European countries, especially Germany after the president's trip to Berlin last week.
In turn, Ribera has announced that the Government is closely monitoring the impact of the rise in energy prices on Spanish families and companies, so he does not rule out the possibility of taking more measures in this regard, but has avoided greater precision in this sense.
Sources from the Ministry for the Ecological Transition explained that the tube interconnection with France "is an issue that affects all member states and European institutions." "An issue that must be analyzed with prudence and loyalty by the 27", they affirmed after Macron's 'no'. Therefore, we are working to maximize our strategic autonomy; We cannot return to situations of vulnerability in the face of continuous and future blackmail by Putin.
A position that the Government considers reinforced by the Commission itself. Its president, Ursula von der Leyen, stated this Tuesday in a message on social networks that "this has been a year like no other, but we have shown, once again, that challenges make our Union stronger; so let us unite and reflect on our common European future". This will be one of the keys to your State of the Union address.
Spain defends the Midcat as a key infrastructure for a future "hydrogen corridor" which, according to the Ecological Transition, could "satisfy the medium and long term objectives and also the short term to reduce energy dependence".
