The Third Vice President and Minister of Ecological Transition, Theresa Riverahas pushed away the possibility of building a gas pipeline connecting Barcelona with Genoa to supply gas from the Maghreb and thus reduce dependence on the Russian market. “It is not a solution for the current crisis, but it shows that sharing our complementarities is key in the decarbonization agenda & rdquor ;, he declared this Friday at the Barcelona React conference. Ribera has been “optimistic & rdquor; in relation to the European Commission approving the joint proposal of Spain and Portugal to cap the price of gas at 30 euros and thus be able to lower the energy bill of homes and businesses within three or four weeks. “It is a realistic deadline & rdquor ;, he asserted.
During his visit to Barcelona and before an auditorium full of businessmen, Ribera has insisted on his suspicions towards the voices that ask for the immediate reactivation of the Midcat gas pipeline project. This was ruled out a few years ago due to its high cost and the then unattractiveness of liquefied gas and now, in the face of the war in Ukraine, several actors, such as the president of the Catalan employers’ organization Foment del Treball, Josep Sánchez Llibre, have asked for its reconsideration.
Ribera has also wanted to lower the ‘soufflé’ of new ways to bring gas from North Africa to Europe, such as the one that the Spanish and Italian governments have on the table. This past Thursday the Italian Prime Minister, Mario Draghi, confirmed conversations with his counterpart Pedro Sánchez on the possibility of building a gas pipeline between northern Italy and Cataloniaalthough he himself acknowledged that at the moment “it is only a hypothesis and has to be studied”.
Ribera has maintained the same tone of prudence and has insisted that this type of large infrastructure requires three conditions to be profitable. On the one hand, a “common bet & rdquor; of European financing and that it is the Union as a whole that contributes resources to pay for the works. Second, that it must be “resolved by mutual agreement & rdquor; between the different countries to make use as shared as possible among the 27. “We cannot stay stopped in the Pyrenees or in the Mediterranean & rdquor ;, he warned.
And, third, that the project must be conceived in the long term, taking into account that its start-up would require years -which would rule out this option to lower prices now- and that its profitability must be measured in relation to its entire useful life. In other words, if the project of the EU states is to reduce dependence on fossil fuelsthe usefulness of this infrastructure will not be the same now as it will be in 10 years.
Environmentalism cannot be “just a thing for the rich”
The closing of the ‘Barcelona React’ conference, in which the Vice President Ribera and the Minister of Transport, Raquel Sánchez, have participated, have focused on how to reduce the carbon footprint from cities. “Environmentalism cannot be something only for the rich or that only the middle classes can afford. The Administration has to do everything possible to generalize it”, declared the host of the event, the first deputy mayor, James Collboni.