“It was a historic step that the European Commission assumed, in the recent communication that it made in the circumstances of this war between Russia and Ukraine, that it was a strategic option for Europe to increase interconnections between the Iberian Peninsula and the rest of the European market”, he stated.

The prime minister was speaking at the Sines Industrial and Logistics Zone Business Center (ZILS), in the district of Setúbal, where the Madoqua Power2x project was launched, for the production of green hydrogen and ammonia, by the international consortium led by the Portuguese company Madoqua Renewables.

“These interconnections have been blocked for a long time, whether electrical or via the 'pipeline' for the supply of natural gas”, said António Costa, considering this to be an infrastructure “of the greatest importance”.

The 'pipeline' “may today be for natural gas, tomorrow it could be for green hydrogen, it could be in the possible combination of the use of different gases, but it is a very important infrastructure”, he underlined.

“Portugal and Spain together have the capacity, at the moment, already installed to supply 30% of Europe's energy needs in natural gas. We just cannot make this capacity available because there is no interconnection that allows us to export this natural gas that we have the capacity to host, to store to the rest of Europe”, he stressed.