Eduardo González
The Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares, held yesterday in Paris his first bilateral meeting with his French counterpart, Jean Yves Le Drian, with whom he discussed, among other issues, the proposal submitted by Spain to Brussels for the creation of a European platform to facilitate the joint purchase of gas in order to contain electricity prices.
During the meeting at the Quai d’Orsay (headquarters of the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs), the two ministers agreed on the need to “reactivate and strengthen” the Treaty of Cooperation and Friendship and the Cross-Border Cooperation Strategy that were agreed during the bilateral summit in Montauban last March 15 between the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, and the President of France, Emmanuel Macron, two initiatives that “will give a new impetus and will articulate a new strategy for relations between the two countries”, said Albares during the subsequent press conference.
Likewise, “we have addressed the energy and land interconnections, specifically those of the railroad between our two countries, at a time of particular tension in the electricity markets in Europe and that all EU countries, including Spain and France, are suffering,” continued Albares.
In this sense, he said, “I have underlined, in particular, the Spanish proposal to create its own (European) market for electricity and energy and I have explained the main points of the same, which are already well known by France, and which in its main lines it shares”, he added. During the dinner following the press conference, the two ministers discussed “in more detail the upcoming French EU conference”, which represents an “excellent moment to give new impetus to many of these issues at the European level”, Albares said.
The Vice-Presidents and Ministers of Economic Affairs and Ecological Transition, respectively, Nadia Calviño and Teresa Ribera, have submitted a proposal to the European Commission to centralize the purchase of natural gas – similar to the unified European scheme for the purchase of COVID-19 vaccines – in order to contain electricity prices and to try to “reduce dependence” on this fuel in the short and medium term. Gas prices are one of the main reasons for the rise in electricity prices recorded in the wholesale market in recent months. They have also urged Brussels to “increase the negotiating power” of the European Union to obtain more advantageous prices and to have more “strategic reserves” in order to avoid the consequences of “market fluctuations”.
In addition, Albares expressed to Le Drian “Spain’s long-standing commitment to security in the Sahel”, and thanked “France for its support for Spain with regard to the Southern Neighborhood, and specifically for the EU-Southern Neighborhood ministerial meeting to be held in Barcelona on November 29”, which will coincide with “the sixth regional forum of the Union for the Mediterranean (UfM), this time in a face-to-face format”.
Reopening of border crossings
On the other hand, as Albares explained in a meeting with Spanish journalists, the Spanish minister asked his French counterpart “the reopening of border crossings” closed since the end of 2020 in the Basque Country, Navarre and Catalonia to prevent irregular immigration, drug trafficking and the infiltration of terrorists. “What I note is that, very slowly, some of them are being opened,” but “I have again insisted on the need to guarantee the integrity of the Schengen Area and, therefore, the opening of these border crossings,” because “there are a dozen border crossings that, in my opinion, could already be open,” he added.
