Brussels, 06/04/2016 (Agence Europe) - On Wednesday 6 April, the Commission announced that it had granted financial support of €5.6 million under the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) to support the surveys required for the construction of the gas pipeline MidCat, which will connect Catalonia in Spain to the French Midi and support the integration of the Iberian peninsula in the energy market of the EU.
At a meeting attended by the Energy Commissioner Miguel Arias Cañete, two subsidy agreements worth a total of €5.6 million were signed to support the surveys needed to launch the construction work on the gas pipeline Midcat, which aims to increase the interconnection capacity between the Spanish and French gas systems and allow other bidirectional flows of gas between the two countries.
Cañete hailed the step as an “important first stage towards further integrating the gas markets of the Iberian peninsula with the rest of Europe”. “MidCat will increase the energy security of the EU and put an end to the isolation of European countries from the EU energy network”, he added.
The MidCat project features on the list of energy infrastructure projects of common interest (PCI) and its “strategic importance” was acknowledged in the Madrid declaration signed on 4 March 2015 between the President of the Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, and the heads of state or government of France, Spain and Portugal (EUROPE 11268). The high-level group for the interconnection of South West Europe is now responsible for its implementation (EUROPE 11348).
Other infrastructure projects to reinforce interconnections between the Iberian peninsula and France were identified at the Madrid summit, such as an undersea electricity cable project across the Bay of Biscay and two electricity interconnection projects across the Pyrenees. (Original version in French by Emmanuel Hagry)