Germany and Spain want to secure Europe’s energy supply with a gas pipeline across the Pyrenees. The pipeline could connect LNG terminals in Spain and Portugal to the rest of Europe. France is still blocked.
According to their own assessment, the German and Spanish governments have found what they are looking for in their search for new ways of securing Europe’s energy supply. They support the construction of a gas pipeline across the Pyrenees. In a joint plan of action that was decided at the German-Spanish government consultations in La Coruña, the two countries advocate the realization of the line called Midcat between Spain and France. This could be completed by 2025 at the latest. Later, hydrogen produced with renewable energies will also be transported through the line. However, France has so far resisted the construction.
At a press conference, Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) and Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez together campaigned for the realization of the Pyrenees pipeline. “I expressly advocate that we create this connection,” said Scholz, especially with regard to the possibility of transporting hydrogen. One wants to make the project possible “in friendship and cooperation with France”. “We don’t have the impression that that’s impossible.”
Gas supply: Spain and Portugal an energy island
Sanchez said it is “a big contradiction that Spain and Portugal are an energy island”. He referred to liquid gas terminals in Spain, which are cut off from the rest of Europe because of the lack of a pipeline. “That’s why Spain and the Iberian Peninsula are asking to be connected to Europe,” Sanchez said. “I think that would be good for France, good for Germany, good for Europe. It would reassure all Europeans about the situation because there would be more alternative energy supplies.”
Scholz traveled to the government consultations with half his cabinet. Eight of his 16 ministers, including Vice Chancellor and Economics Minister Robert Habeck (Greens), Finance Minister Christian Lindner (FDP) and Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock (Greens), accompanied him in a new Bundeswehr troop transporter.
Midcat Pipeline – Stopped in 2017 as uneconomic
The action plan covers almost all policy areas from education and research to economy, defense and security. The passage on energy cooperation is of particular current importance. The Midcat pipeline advocated by Scholz and Sanchez is to run from Barcelona across the Pyrenees to the connection to the French network in Barbaira in southern France. In Spain, the tube is complete as far as Hostalric, 106 kilometers south of the border; in France, around 120 kilometers are missing. The project was canceled in 2017 due to lack of profitability.
The natural gas that is to flow north through the pipe could be sourced by Spain and Portugal from different sources, since the two countries together have a total of seven LNG terminals. There are also two pipelines to the gas supplier Algeria in North Africa.
Source: Stern
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