Sánchez talks with Arias Cañete. / Photo: Pool Moncloa / Fernando Calvo
The Diplomat. 28/07/2018
The political leaders of Spain, Portugal, France and the EU agreed yesterday in Lisbon to create a credit line of 578 million euros to finance the electric interconnection project of the Biscay Bay.
The president of France, Emmanuel Macron; the Portuguese Prime Minister, António Costa; the president of the Spanish Government, Pedro Sánchez; and the European Commissioner for Action for Climate and Energy, Miguel Ángel Arias Cañete, met yesterday in the Portuguese capital with the aim of improving interconnections between the three countries and strengthening the connections of the Iberian Peninsula with European gas markets and European electricity.
Since the Juncker Commission took office, the integration of the Iberian Peninsula into the internal energy market has been a priority. For this reason, the EU has proposed to end the energy isolation of this part of Europe through the construction of the necessary infrastructures.
To this end, the European Investment Bank (EIB) approved a credit line for the Gulf of Biscay project yesterday, which, according to the Lisbon Declaration, represents «the greatest European financial support ever granted to an energy infrastructure” within the framework of the Connecting Europe Facility-Energy grants. It is the «biggest subsidy» given to an energy project by the EU, Arias Cañete said during the press conference after the summit.
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The Lisbon Summit approves a project that will double the energy exchange between Spain and France
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The Biscay Bay line, with 280 kilometers of electrical interconnection and whose total cost is valued at almost 2,000 million euros, will double the capacity of exchange between France and Spain between now and 2025 (from the current 2,800 megawatts to 5,000), will bring Spain closer to the interconnection target of 10% established by the European Council for 2020 (from the current level of 6%) and will integrate the Iberian Peninsula into the internal market for electricity.
Likewise, the Spanish, French and Portuguese leaders and Commissioner Arias Cañete reiterated their commitment to the Cantegrit-Navarra and Marsillon-Aragón projects – with a view to their completion in the next decade – and with the connection between Vila Fría, in Portugal, and Fontefría, in Spain.
During the press conference, Pedro Sánchez highlighted the «sum of wills» of the three countries to face «enormous challenges», such as climate change and the energy transition, and assured that the Spanish Government is firmly determined to modify the current productive model to modernize the Spanish economy through clean energy.
