France and Spain seek compromise on power grid linkage

French and Spanish leaders have promised to move forward a stalled project to interconnect France and Spain’s electricity grid across the Pyrenees, following a preliminary report by former EU Competition Commissioner Mario Monti.

Connecting France and Spain’s electricity grids is considered by the Commission to be of great strategic importance for the realisation of a common EU energy market and for the Franco-Spanish region. Spain in particular has a strategic interest in connecting with a larger European energy grid in order to secure its future energy supply. 

But for the past 25 years, no new electricity interconnections across the Pyrenees have been realised, and the project was put on hold by the French government in 1997 following extensive protests by environmental groups.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy and Spanish Prime Minister José Luis Zapatero promised during a Franco-Spanish summit on 10 January to revise the project, saying that a compromise would be found by 30 June 2008.

Doubts remain about the likelihood of such a compromise, however, as local communities on both sides of the border in the Pyrenees region and Catalonia fiercely oppose the project.

Concerns include the potentially destructive impact of constructing electricity infrastructure in local communities and sensitive environments, and local civic organisations have mounted highly organised campaigns to contest the project, arguing that they have been given insufficient justification for the construction of the necessary power lines. 

Financing and planning concerns also plague the project, with the level of state subsidies to the two main contracting firms – RTE (Réseau de transport électricité) and REE (Red Electrica de Espana) – still to be determined, and with questions remaining about the exact location of the future power cables.

In September 2007, Mario Monti was designated as one of four European coordinators for energy infrastructure projects “facing technical, political or financial difficulties”, with the hope that the former Commissioner might act as an intermediary who can rejuvinate the stalled venture.

Monti’s report notes a “positive dynamic” during discussions with local and state officials, including at the highest level of the French and Spanish governments.

But the report also notes that local opposition remains strong, and it criticises France and Spain for poor communication of the necessity of the project and for having so far failed to create a joint coordination mechanism, with both sides working largely in isolation on either side of the border.

Citing a significant increase in electricity demand on both sides of the Franco-Spanish border, Monti warns that if the interconnection is not completed, the Iberian Peninsula risks becoming an “island”, cut off from the electricity potential and supply of the rest of the European continent.

Please also see EURACTIV France for in-depth coverage of this story. 

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