Eduardo González
The Governments of Spain and Portugal reaffirmed yesterday in the Portuguese town of Viana do Castelo, during the XXXIII Spanish-Portuguese Summit, the need to reform the European energy market and highlighted, in this sense, “the very positive results of the Iberian Mechanism that limits the price of gas used for electricity production” and the efforts of the European Commission for the joint purchase of gas or for the application of a price cap.
This is stated in the Joint Declaration approved yesterday by the two governments at the end of the Summit, which was chaired by the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, and the Prime Minister of Portugal, António Costa, and was attended by the Vice-Presidents of Labor and Energy Transition and the Ministers of Science, Innovation and Universities; Foreign Affairs, Interior, Industry, Trade and Tourism; Equality and Territorial Policy, together with their Portuguese counterparts. The previous Summit was held on October 28, 2021 in the Extremadura town of Trujillo.
“Today, Spain looks at Portugal not only with affection, but with admiration and complicity,” said Sánchez at the press conference following the Summit. “I dare say that there has never been in Spain so much interest and so much closeness towards Portugal as now,” he continued. “I feel deeply proud of all the measures and decisions that both countries are taking in three areas: the Iberian, the European and the international,” he added.
Following the decision to give these summits a thematic character, the XXXIII edition was dedicated to cooperation in innovation and science, as stated in the Joint Declaration. In fact, before the start of the Summit, the two heads of government visited the International Iberian Nanotechnology Laboratory in Braga, “a world reference in nanotechnology”, and talked with a group of 24 researchers from Spain, Portugal and other countries. At the end of this meeting, several Spanish and Portuguese university rectors signed a Memorandum of Understanding for the creation of an Iberian Food Laboratory. In addition, the meeting participants visited the Paredes de Coura vaccine factory of the Galician biopharmaceutical company Zendal.
During the Viana de Castelo Summit, the two governments signed a total of eleven Memoranda of Understanding (MoU). On the one hand, the Spanish Minister of Science and Innovation, Diana Morant, and the Portuguese Minister of Science, Technology and Higher Education, Elvira Fortunato, signed an agreement for the development of the Atlantic Constellation, a joint constellation of 16 Earth observation satellites that other countries could join; and a MoU to set up the Iberian Energy Storage Research Center (CIIAE), located in Cáceres, as an international organization, which is expected to be operational by the end of 2023.
On the other hand, the Second Vice-President of the Government and Minister of Labor and Social Economy, Yolanda Díaz, and her Portuguese counterpart, Ana Mendes Godinho, agreed on the implementation of the Cross-border Work Guide in Spain and Portugal, a consultative tool announced during the previous Trujillo Summit to solve all the doubts that affect thousands of workers along the border shared by both nations.
Likewise, the Minister of Industry, Trade and Tourism, Reyes Maroto, and the Portuguese Minister of Economy and the Sea, António Costa Silva, signed a Memorandum for the implementation of a Cross-Border Tourism Strategy 2022-2024, which had also been agreed in Trujillo and whose objective is to promote investments in tourist destinations and experiences on both sides of the Spanish-Portuguese border so that this activity becomes an engine of sustainable development in the oldest and longest border territory of the European Union. The two governments also signed MoUs on the V Centenary of the Circumnavigation, the development of a joint microelectronics strategy, the articulation of a Luso-Spanish Network of Entities Promoting Cross-Border Territorial Cooperation, violence against women and violence and Border Culture.
In addition, Spain and Portugal highlighted the progress made in the implementation of the Common Strategy for Cross-Border Development (ECDT), approved at the 31st Spanish-Portuguese Summit in Guarda, and undertook to strengthen cooperation to promote cross-border territories, with the aim of repopulating and attracting new demographic profiles, “mainly through the cross-border road accessibility foreseen in the ECDT, such as the connections between Bragança and Puebla de Sanabria, Zamora-Quintanilla , Miranda de Duero-Zamora, through Sayago, Castelo Branco-Monfortinho-Moraleja and the international bridges Nisa-Cedillo and Alcoutim-Sanlúcar del Guadiana”.
Energy
In any case, and as expected, during the Summit addressed the creation of a common front so that the Iberian Peninsula ceases to be an “energy island”, after the two countries reached an agreement with the President of France, Emmanuel Macron, for the implementation of an underwater gas pipeline between Barcelona and Marseille (BarMar). In the Declaration, Spain and Portugal underline their “commitment to the reinforcement of energy connections between both countries and between the Iberian Peninsula and the rest of the European energy market”, considering it “essential for the security of European supply and for the fulfillment of the EU’s climate objectives”.
The two countries also assured that they will give “top priority” to the completion of the renewable gas interconnection linking Celorico da Beira and Zamora (CelZa), one of the components of the Green Energy Corridor between Portugal, Spain and France and announced that, “taking into account the European dimension of this project, they will work closely with the European Commission in the coming weeks, especially to identify European funding sources”. They also highlighted “the efforts made to carry out the Minho-Galicia electricity interconnection” and confirmed the recent decision of the environmental authorities of both countries to maintain the East/East electricity interconnection “as the most viable”.
On the other hand, the two governments applauded “the measures being taken in the EU to strengthen energy security, reduce energy consumption by protecting households and businesses and diversify energy sources to rapidly reduce dependence on Russian fossil fuels” and assured that “the measures necessary to limit the increase in gas prices, which is affecting electricity prices, must respect, in a spirit of solidarity, the particularities of the Member States”.
Therefore, Spain and Portugal “warmly welcome the efforts being made for a structural reform of the functioning of the internal electricity market” that “allows the decoupling of electricity and natural gas prices” and also welcome “the very positive results of the Iberian Mechanism that limits the price of gas used for electricity production and that results in significant reductions in the prices faced by consumers exposed to the market”. They also applaud the European Commission’s efforts to quickly operationalize the EU platform for joint gas procurement or to implement a gas price cap. At the press conference, Pedro Sánchez reiterated that the so-called Iberian solution is “an indisputable achievement of our two countries that today inspires the EU energy debate” and that, in Spain alone, it has led to savings for families and companies of 2,900 million euros since it was implemented.
Since June 15, Spain and Portugal have been governed by the so-called “Iberian Mechanism”, which allows the price of gas used to produce electricity to be capped at 40 euros per megawatt/hour. The application of this mechanism was made possible after the European Council of March 25 approved the right of the two Iberian countries to manage their own reference gas prices for combined cycle power plants, in view of the peninsula’s “energy island” nature due to its very low interconnection with the European energy market. On October 21, the Heads of State and Government of the 27 agreed, at the European Council in Brussels, on a series of measures which, according to Pedro Sánchez, will allow “the Iberian model, or something similar, to be extended to the rest of the EU, a mechanism which has already saved our consumers 2,900 million euros”.
“Five hundred years ago, from one corner of the continent, Spain and Portugal opened Europe to the world. Today we work side by side to make our peninsula a global reference in the defense of dignity, of people’s welfare, in the creation of wealth and prosperity in an innovative and sustainable way”, concluded the President of the Government.
