I had the privilege of receiving the insignia of Knight of the National Order of the Legion of Honour, which recognises the work that has gone into strengthening ties between Spain and France. It is the highest award granted by the President of the French Republic to those who stand out for eminent merits in service to the country and it is a great honour and joy for me.
I received this award from France’s Ambassador to Spain, surrounded by family, friends and colleagues who I was very grateful to share that moment with.
As someone who is staunchly pro-EU, and has worked throughout his professional career in the energy and infrastructure sector, I have tried my utmost to do my bit to promote the European Energy Union. To continue making progress in the energy transition process we need interconnection with the rest of the European Union with the aim of advancing towards a single energy market. This is crucial to allow growing levels of renewable energy integration in the electricity system.
For that matter, I would like to stress the importance of continuing with the development of interconnections between Spain and France in guaranteeing the security of supply in Europe and greater competitiveness and solidarity between countries. We have taken steps in the right direction in the past few years with regards to this issue and this has led us to double the number of gas connections with our neighbour. But we cannot become complacent, there is still ground to cover before we can start talking about a Europe that is truly connected in terms of energy.
Alongside the Spanish and French governments, as well as Portugal and Algeria, we are continuing to drive this initiative forward with the MidCat Project, which has been declared to be of Common European Interest by the European Commission. We are currently in the first phase, called STEP (South Transit East Pyrenees) which involves the construction of a gas pipeline that will link the Iberian Peninsula to Europe through France and improve the security of the gas supply in the European Union.
Receiving this award is an incentive to keep working and contributing to relations between Spain and France. Finally, I would like to share this recognition with my team at Enagás, a company approaching 50 years of history and with a bright vision of the future, that challenges me and brings me an enormous amount of professional satisfaction each and every day.