General – Gas Link
Portugal said on Tuesday gas supplies to central European countries require a closer interconnection with the Iberian peninsula that, if impossible through France, should go through Italy.
Spain and Portugal have large gas import capacities through their liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminals, which could be used to supply central Europe with additional pipeline connections such as the one planned crossing the Pyrenees between Spain and France, dubbed Midcat.
However, French President Emmanuel Macron said on Monday he opposed the Midcat project, arguing that capacity on the two existing cross-Pyrenees gas pipelines was underutilised and gas flows were going mainly in the direction of Spain.
Portugal’s environment minister Duarte Cordeiro said that ‘this is a European matter, not a bilateral issue between countries’, adding that finding solutions was crucial.
“We’re a bit agnostic about solutions … if the solution is with France or if it is with Italy. But solutions have to be found and it will be the solution that is possible,” he told reporters.
Cordeiro said Portugal had already spoken to the Italian government about a much longer pipeline connecting the Spanish grid to Italy’s through the Mediterranean.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz last month pushed for the construction of a pipeline from Portugal through Spain and France to central Europe to wean Europe from Russian energy dependence.
Cordeiro said that Iberia could be an alternative to Russian gas for central Europe and, “in the future, given the greater penetration of renewable sources, with lower prices, it could be an alternative to supplying renewable gases”, such as hydrogen, produced with renewable power.
The new connection would have to be financed by European funds, Cordeiro said.
Launched in 2013, the Midcat project was planned to connect Spain’s gas grid north of Barcelona to France and also aimed at pumping Algerian gas towards northern Europe. The project was suspended in 2019 for cost and environmental reasons.
