Spain, Portugal seek more energy support

The governments of Spain and Portugal have asked the European Union to help strengthen power connections with France in the aftermath of the nationwide blackouts that hit the countries at the end of April.

Telephone networks crashed, traffic lights stopped working, planes were grounded, and train services halted after the huge loss of power, the specific cause of which remains unclear, but which is not thought likely to have been an act of deliberate sabotage or interference.

Energy from Morocco and France helped to get things working again, and Reuters reports that a letter has been sent to European Energy Commissioner Dan Jorgensen demanding that work on new connections with France is finished on time, amid suggestions of delays from the French end.

"Spain and Portugal propose a ministerial meeting during this year in which, together with France and the commission, we can agree on a roadmap with specific milestones and steps to be taken," said the letter, which was signed by Spain's Energy Minister Sara Aagesen and Portugal's Energy Minister Maria da Graca Carvalho.

"A firm political and financial commitment is needed, at all levels, in order to ensure the swift and effective integration of the Iberian Peninsula into the EU energy system," the letter stated.

In 2002, Brussels set EU member states a target of having an electricity import capacity by 2020 that is equal to 10 percent of the amount they generate domestically, with that figure targeted to rise to 15 percent by 2030, but the Financial Times quotes authorities in Madrid as saying the France-Spain connection is still less than 3 percent.

In a recent interview, Carvalho said the issue was not just an urgent matter for the three countries involved, but for Europe as a whole.

"We will involve the president of the European Commission on this, to make sure that we are all integrated and... we help each other to solve the problems," she said.

It is believed that there are long-running tensions between Spain and France that have hampered the strengthening of energy ties, with allegations that France's nuclear power industry is fearful of cheap renewable energy coming from Spain, a suggestion rejected by France's national grid operator, RTE.

"We have always treated interconnections with Spain as a very serious issue, one on which there are French and European commitments," said RTE President Xavier Piechaczyk. "So it is wrong to say that France is not a driving force in interconnections with Spain."

Last week, the European Parliament voted in favor of a resolution calling for a significant increase in cross-border power connections.

Anna Sturgkh, a member of the parliament's Committee on Industry, Research and Energy, told the Politico website "the Iberian blackout shows painfully how vulnerable our grids still are" and urged the commission to "act decisively to prioritize planning and coordination on grids and storage", or "we'll keep lurching from one crisis to the next".