Spain and Portugal are again demanding an “Iberian exception”.

Both countries do not want to participate in the EU Commission's emergency plan to reduce natural gas consumption by 15 percent.

The two governments had recently pushed through an exception to electricity prices.

Spain and Portugal feel unjustly forced to show solidarity with the north, which from the Iberian point of view had relied too much on Russian gas, while the two southern countries have long since opened up other sources at great expense.

Hans Christian Roessler

Political correspondent for the Iberian Peninsula and the Maghreb based in Madrid.

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“Spain has done its homework in this area and is paying more than many European partners.

In contrast to other countries, the Spaniards have not lived beyond their means when it comes to energy,” said the Spanish Environment Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Teresa Ribera, who was annoyed that her government had not been involved in the deliberations.

The protest was also a retaliation for the behavior of the EU partners in the north, who had heavily criticized Spain and Portugal during the financial crisis a decade ago.

Russian gas is practically irrelevant

Similarly sharp reactions came from Portugal to the proposal, which could be passed by a simple majority in Brussels next week.

It was "unsustainable" and "disproportionate," said João Galamba, Secretary of State for Energy in the Portuguese Ministry of the Environment, in an interview.

For years, Portugal had been forced to buy expensive gas because of its peripheral location on the European continent.

Solidarity is now being demanded from a country that "has been disadvantaged for years" because it had no pipelines.

Portugal currently needs the available gas because the hydroelectric power plants cannot produce as much electricity as usual due to the severe drought.

After a heated argument at the EU summit in March, the EU had actually already recognized that Spain and Portugal are exceptions when it comes to energy supply.

They are therefore allowed to temporarily decouple the price of electricity from the price of gas.

Spain and Portugal are poorly connected to the European gas and electricity grid.

Only two smaller pipelines lead to France via the Pyrenees and form a real bottleneck.

They are already working at their capacity limit to supply France with additional gas.

At the same time, Russian gas plays practically no role on the Iberian Peninsula.

The most important gas supplier for Spain is the USA.

Algeria supplies the country via a pipeline under the Mediterranean Sea.

Portugal receives its gas through the LNG terminal of the deep sea port in Sines, mainly from Nigeria, the USA and Qatar.

Spain has six active LNG ports where LNG can be converted and fed into the pipelines.

These systems have been expanded for more than three billion euros in recent years.

In both countries, the share of renewable energy sources in electricity generation is also significantly higher than in most EU members.

In Portugal, 80 percent of the country's electricity production is to come from these sources in four years.

Chancellor Olaf Scholz rejected the allegations from Portugal and Spain on Friday.

The need to reduce gas consumption is a "global problem".

According to Scholz, the Commission also developed its proposal in such a way that it differentiated with regard to import structures and consumption.