Paris remains opposed to the Spanish project of a new gas pipeline (MidCat) between France and Spain but is ready to discuss electricity interconnections and a “hydrogen strategy”, explained the Elysee before the summit.
On the MidCat, “our position has not changed, this project does not have economic and environmental viability,” the French presidency has hammered.
“On the other hand, we want to take into account the need to open up the Iberian Peninsula and find medium and long-term solutions with our partners,” she said. “We must be pragmatic and strategic, addressing beyond the MidCat issue the questions of electrical interconnection and perhaps longer term issues, among others a European hydrogen strategy,” stressed an adviser to the President.
“This debate is not intended to respond to the issues of very short term and security of supply for this winter or next,” said the Elysee, while the war in Ukraine has serious consequences on the price of hydrocarbons and could lead to shortages, the EU is determined to reduce its dependence on Russian gas and oil.
“The outlook around Midcat was five to six years. Now we are talking about projections for 2030,” says the Elysée. Supported by Madrid but also by Berlin, which sees it as a way to reduce the EU’s dependence on Russian gas, MidCat (short for Midi-Catalogna) would allow Spain, which has 30% of Europe’s liquefied natural gas (LNG) regasification capacity, to export gas by ship from the United States or Qatar to the rest of Europe. This project – which was abandoned in 2019 because of its environmental impact and its economic interest, which was considered limited at the time – could in the longer term allow the transport of “green hydrogen”, the energy of the future produced by renewable energies, of which Spain wants to be one of the champions.
President Macron believes that the need for such an infrastructure is “not obvious”, noting that the peninsula currently uses mainly the pipelines linking it to France to “import” gas.
