A member of the group, the European commissioner on Climate Miguel Arias
Kaniete declared that the energy ought to be supplied without hindrance all over the territory of EU. It would be beneficial not only for EU but will strengthen the competitiveness of the European manufacturers and create new workplaces. Furthermore a more effective applying of the renewable sources of energy would protect the environment. "Creation of this group is not only a natural extension of the Madrid summit, which took place on 4-th of March but an important step to the integration of Iberian demi-island into the energy market of EC", emphasized mr. Kaniete.
To necessity of creation of the working group has led to the fact that an insufficient interconnection of electrical circuits is the main obstacle on the way to creation of the regional energy market in South-West Europe.
In addition, all the things prevent access for Portugal and Spanish energy companies to the internal EU market. At the same time in January 2015 the operators of Spain, Portugal and France concluded a strategic agreement of interconnection. Moreover in February of the year the agreement of creation of the power line of Santa Liogay-Backs was approved which must increase the power line between France and Spain twice as much. For this project there have already been allocated 255 million Euro, provided within the framework of European Energy Programme for Recovery.
In the near future the plan for implementation of Madrid Declaration is to be designed, signed by Jean-Claude Juncer, the president of France Francua Olland, the Prime-minister of Spain Mariano Rajoy and Prime-minister of Portugal Pedro Passos Koelio.
In general, the group will concentrate its efforts on the development of gas and electrical infrastructure that will be focused on regular monitoring and technical assistance for the participating countries.
For supporting the work of the group by EU commission there have begun the researches to define technical opportunity, prime cost and the advantages of further mutual integration of gas and electric power lines of Iberian Peninsula and the other part of EU. The reports about results of the researches will be done in the fourth quarter of this year.
EU energy policy
On 25th of February of this year the European Commission declared about a new strategy of EC. As the central element there was presented an ambition to achieve by 2020 the interconnection of the European electrical power lines to 10 percent.
A little earlier the European Commission suggested creating European Fund for Strategic Investment that is to improve the access to durable financing for the European investment projects. Nowadays this question is in the center of the discussion of commission on economic growth, employment and investments. The fund is supposed to attract 315 billion euro of private and public investments, including 16 billion euro will be provided from the budget of EU and 5 billion euro by the European Investment Bank.
