The blackmail of Russia with gas has forced the members of the European Union to rethink the energy map to stop being dependent on the Kremlin and is favoring some diplomatic alliances that can benefit Spain financially in the long term.
Germanywhich for decades had relied on cheap Russian gas to develop its economy, has become a target of Vladimir’s coercion Putinwhich has come to cut off the supply through the gas pipeline for a few days North Stream 1, linking Russia with the German coast. Berlin’s urgency to seek alternatives has led its chancellor, Olaf scholz, to support the resumption of construction of the MidCat, between Catalonia and France, so that the Iberian Peninsula can export gas to the rest of Europe. That pipeline could also lead in the medium term green Hydrogen, clean energy, produced from water, which will be key to fighting against climate change. Pedro Sánchez has defended on several occasions that Spain has all the requirements to become a “world power” in that energy.
The Spanish president and the chancellor will meet on Tuesday at the German castle of Meseberg
Abandoned in 2019
The chief executive has found in Scholz, a social democrat like him, the best ally to put pressure on the French government and finish off the Midcat, of which only part of the pipe is buried (to Hostalric). It would be about 200 kilometers to the border, which, according to the vice president of Ecological Transition, Teresa Ribera, could be built in “eight or nine months.”
Putin’s blackmail has led the Spanish government to change its position, since in 2019 both Madrid and Paris considered that the project it was too expensive and they abandoned it consensually. France, on the other hand, remains reluctant, because it believes that it would not solve the current crisis. Sánchez and Scholz will address this issue next Tuesday during the visit that the Spanish president will make to the castle of meseberg70 kilometers from Berlin, a place that the German Government uses to accommodate prominent international leaders.
Who pays?
Both leaders want to put pressure on Emmanuel Macron, but also to Brussels: both agree that the project should be paid for by all Europeans. Sánchez considers that Spain, which has a desired network of six plants that regasify the liquefied natural gas that arrives by ship already pays for these installations and it should be the European partners, who are going to benefit, who pay for the pipeline.
Ribera defends the French option before the Italian: “The simple thing is to go to the easiest, to what can be operational for the autumn-winter of 2023-2024”
On Wednesday, the chief executive sent a message to Macron to encourage him to decide. If you don’t want MidCat, say so clearly, and Spain will promote another gas pipeline, in this case submarine Come in Barcelona and Livorno (Italy), to export gas and also green hydrogen. The Italian Government is in favour. Vice President Ribera, in any case, admits that she prefers the French option. “It is a most complicated engineering work [la italiana]. The simple, the clean, in a country that calls itself pro-European, at an extremely critical moment for Europe, is to go for the easiest, for what can be operational for the autumn-winter of 2023-2024 and that is that connection of the Iberian hydrogen corridor, which in the first instance could transport natural gas through the Pyrenees, doubling the current capacity,” Ribera explained in an interview on Antena 3.
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The Government insisted on the message this Thursday again and from Paris. The Minister of the Presidency, Felix Bolanostraveled to the French capital, to participate in an act of remembrance for the 78th anniversary of the liberation of the French capital from the Nazis, and asked for a decision to be made between all the partners as soon as possible.
Bolaños insisted that the pipeline could also carry green Hydrogen, since some French government sources stress that such an installation is a waste of time because gas is an energy to be eliminated. “It is a strategic project for Spain, for Germany, for France, and in general for the EU,” he stressed.