The ambitious “green” hydrogen pipeline between Barcelona and Marseille, officially launched on Friday, will be operational in 2030 and will cost around 2.5 billion euros, announced the French, Spanish and Portuguese leaders, behind this project hailed by Brussels.
This project must be “completed by 2030”, French President Emmanuel Macron said after a meeting with the heads of Spanish and Portuguese governments, Pedro Sánchez and Antonio Costa, in Alicante, in the south-east. from Spain.
Its cost should “approximately 2.5 billion euros”, indicated, for his part, Mr. Sánchez, who specified that this pipe would transport by 2030 some two million tons of hydrogen per year, i.e. 10% of European consumption.
This underwater pipeline should make it possible to transport so-called “green” hydrogen – because it is made from renewable electricity – from the Iberian Peninsula, which aims to become a champion of this energy of the future, to the north of the European Union (EU) via France.
Called “H2Med” or “BarMar” (contraction of Barcelona and Marseille, the two cities connected by this pipe), this project replaces the “MidCat”, launched in 2003 to connect the French and Spanish gas networks via the Pyrenees, but finally abandoned. because of its lack of economic interest, the opposition of ecologists and that of Paris.
It will be submitted in the coming days to the European Commission in order to be able to benefit from the status of “project of common interest” and therefore be partly financed by European funds, added Mr. Macron.
“In the right direction”
Present at the meeting between the three leaders, the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, “warmly welcomed” the launch of this project, which “goes in the right direction”, because it will help the EU to “build a real European hydrogen backbone”.
“The Iberian Peninsula is on the way to becoming one of the major energy hubs in Europe. And the European Union will be part of this ‘success story’”, she added.
Initially designed to temporarily transport gas from the Iberian Peninsula to the rest of the EU in order to reduce dependence on Russian gas, the H2Med will ultimately only be used to transport hydrogen, said Antonio Costa.
This choice not to transport fossil energy was necessary in order to ensure that Brussels could declare it a “project of common interest”.
Paris, Madrid and Lisbon are hoping for a response from the Commission in early 2023.
Absent Meloni
This meeting on the H2Med was held before an EU Med summit, which will open in the afternoon and will be devoted in particular to questions of economic sovereignty, in particular in terms of energy.
Croatia, Cyprus, Greece, Italy, Malta and Slovenia are members of this forum of southern EU countries alongside France, Spain and Portugal.
Flu, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni canceled her visit in the morning and will be replaced by her head of diplomacy, Antonio Tajani, we learned from the Italian government.
She was to meet Pedro Sánchez on the sidelines of this summit, but no bilateral meeting had, however, been organized with Emmanuel Macron, according to the Élysée.
Since he took office in October, relations between Rome and Paris have been marked by tensions caused by the stranding of hundreds of migrants in early November off Italy on humanitarian ships.
The French government then denounced the “unacceptable behavior” of the Italian authorities, judging it “contrary to the law of the sea and the spirit of European solidarity”.
This EU Med summit was originally scheduled to take place in September, but had to be postponed because Mr. Sánchez had COVID-19.