Portugal wants EU to pressure reluctant France on power connections

By Sergio Goncalves

CASCAIS, Portugal (Reuters) -The EU must enforce common market rules to integrate the Iberian peninsula's power grid into wider Europe, overcoming France's reluctance to add interconnections, Portugal said on Tuesday, after a massive blackout hit the peninsula last month.

The blackout, which started in Spain and also left mainland Portugal without electricity on April 28, could have been less crippling had the two countries had more interconnections to resume power supplies rather than just relying on their own power plants, according to experts and officials.

Last Wednesday, the energy ministers of Spain and Portugal sent a letter to the EU energy commissioner Dan Jorgensen asking him to step in.

"France has a lot of nuclear energy and does not have a great interest in importing cheaper renewable energy from Iberia," Portuguese Energy Minister Maria da Graca Carvalho told reporters on the sidelines of an event in Cascais, near Lisbon.

But the European Commission can "pressure" France to comply with the rules of the EU electricity market, she added.

"If we (Portugal) do something that is considered a barrier to the internal market, the Commission wastes no time in sending us a letter with a warning. So we expect the same attitude towards France," Carvalho said.

Iberia lags behind the EU's target for all countries to have15% of their energy system interconnected to the broaderEuropean network by 2030, with its share stuck at just 3%.

Works to strengthen an existing interconnector between France and Spain are expected to wrap up this year, while a new underwater power line spanning the Bay of Biscay is set to be completed by 2028.

Although French grid operator RTE has studied the feasibility of building two additional interconnections with Spain over the Pyrenees, Carvalho said they are not part of France's new plan until 2035, which she said "worries" her.

(Reporting by Sergio GoncalvesEditing by Gareth Jones)