The President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, and the German Chancellor, Olaf Scholz, will certify their alliance in favor of the promotion of energy interconnections in the European Union and, in particular, the one that should link the Iberian Peninsula with France through the Pyrenees.
Sánchez has been invited by Scholz to meet with him and participate in an extraordinary session of his Council of Ministers in which, for two days, he will address the national security strategy and the power supply problems arising from the war in Ukraine.
The head of the Executive will attend the first day (which will prevent him from presiding over the usual Tuesday meeting of the Council of Ministers) and for this he will travel to the town of Meseberg, about 70 kilometers from Berlin and whose castle has been the site chosen by the German chancellor to bring together his government.
Guarantee gas supply
Sánchez’s meeting with Scholz and with all the German ministers comes at a time when Europe is trying to promote alternatives to guarantee the supply of gas in the face of what the Prime Minister describes as “energy blackmail” by the Russian leader, Vladimir Putin, after the invasion of Ukraine.
Spain has been demanding the gas interconnection with France for years through the Pyrenees (the so-called MidCat), a project that in the current situation is regaining prominence to the point that Scholz called for it to be promoted days ago.
But it is an initiative that has always had the French reticence.
Sánchez, in his recent Latin American tour, assured that he intends to persuade the French president, Emmanuel Macron, of the need for this interconnection, who recalled that it is part of the European Commission’s plans and that it would have community funding
But he warned that if France maintains its rejection, there is a plan B which also appears among the Commission’s alternatives: an energy interconnection between Spain and Italy.
Sánchez will talk about all this with the German ministers and with Scholz, and will reiterate Spain’s full commitment to help the EU countries most exposed to a cut in Russian gas supply, including Germany, as well as that this solidarity is evident in the energy saving plan approved by your Government.
beyond the energy
But the Meseberg meeting It won’t be just to talk about energy, but it will allow us to deal with other issues on the European agenda and how to deal with more difficulties arising from the war in Ukraine.
Also Scholz’s proposal for the European Union to begin adopting decisions by majority -instead of doing so by consensus- on some specific issues, as the first step in some reforms that he considers necessary to enlarge the bloc to the east.
Sanchez returns to Germany after last March 18 he met with Scholz in Berlin as part of the tour he made through several European countries to defend a reform of the energy market that was initially viewed with reluctance by Brussels.
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However, the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, announced on Monday an “emergency intervention” and a structural reform of the electricity market in the face of its exorbitant rise in prices.
“We need a new market model for electricity that really works and brings us back into balance,” he said.