A statement released by the Ministry of the Environment and Energy said that the meeting took place on the sidelines of the Council of Energy Ministers of the European Union. It was decided ‘to instruct the Portuguese Environment Agency (APA) and its Spanish counterpart to prepare a proposal for an agreement, to be signed between the two countries, on the various projects for the utilization of water from the River Tagus and the River Guadiana’.
Maria da Graça Carvalho’s ministry added that the meeting between the Portuguese minister and her Spanish counterpart, the Minister for the Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge, Teresa Ribera Rodríguez, also covered energy utilization.
The meeting resulted in ‘an agreement to promote joint actions between Portugal and Spain, which will not only speed up Iberian electricity interconnections with the rest of Europe, but also adapt the Iberian Electricity Market (MIBEL) to the new rules of the European Electricity Market, recently approved’.
Both leaders ‘also considered that greater bilateral cooperation in the environmental impact assessment processes of the three cross-border interconnection road projects was of the utmost importance,’ the government points out.
The projects in question are the Alcoutim – Sanlucar de Guadiana Bridge, the International Bridge over the River Sever and the link between Bragança and Puebla de Sanabria, financed by the Recovery and Resilience Plan (PRR) and whose development is being taken on by the Portuguese state, the ministry added.
Platform with Lusa
