Marrakech – The proposed electricity interconnection between Portugal and Morocco “will only move forward if there is a possibility of European or private-sector financing,” Portugal’s Minister of Environment and Energy told Parliament.
Maria da Graça Carvalho set that condition in a written response to a question tabled by the CDS – Partido Popular (CDS-PP), fixing a clear limit on a project both governments have been pushing since July.
The response places the link under review rather than at the point of commitment. “The project is therefore at a stage of assessment and not of investment decision,” it states.
The government wants to carry out an updated cost-benefit analysis, compare the different technical and financial solutions, and gauge the interest of grid operators and other investors, according to the text published on the parliamentary website. Until that work is done, the project stays under evaluation.
The technology and the route are not settled. “The technological solution and the route remain open,” the response notes, pointing to three paths: a direct link, a joint solution between Portugal, Spain and Morocco, or participation in infrastructure promoted by private entities.
In parallel, Lisbon and Rabat agreed at their recent energy meeting to approach the European Commission so the project can be recognized as a priority and draw on European mechanisms for financing energy infrastructure.
Carvalho considers it “premature” to indicate how the link would affect the prices paid by households and companies. That impact, the response explains, will depend on the investment required, the capacity and use of the interconnection, the technological solution adopted, and the financing model.
The government argues that interconnections “deepen market integration,” “allow more efficient use of energy resources,” and “translate into benefits for consumers and for the competitiveness of the economy.” Those benefits, it concedes, “will have to be demonstrated by the cost-benefit analysis.”
On resilience, the ministry is direct: “an interconnection does not, in itself, prevent a blackout, but it can help accelerate the restoration of supply.” A possible link to Morocco, the response adds, “will constitute an additional and independent source of energy recovery, reinforcing diversification, security of supply, and the capacity to recover.”
The government frames the infrastructure as complementary to the reinforcement of interconnections with Spain and France and to national measures already adopted, among them the doubling – from two to four – of power plants with autonomous start capacity and the execution of the National Electric System Security Reinforcement Plan.
The conditional stance builds on the July meeting in Lisbon, where Carvalho and Morocco’s Energy Transition Minister Leila Benali agreed to build the link and to seek EU support. The two moved to have the interconnection treated as an Important Project of Common European Interest (IPCEI), a designation that opens access to European co-financing, raising the prospect with Commission Executive Vice-President Teresa Ribera.
“We have decided to first talk with the EC to see its interest in considering this as an important European project,” Carvalho told reporters after the meeting.
Both ministers stressed cost. “We don’t want to overcharge our contributors or our consumers,” she noted, while Benali pointed to the need “to ensure that we decrease costs, especially the affordability of energy access.” Carvalho called the project “important for Europe and also for Africa,” and Benali described it as “very important” for her government.
The two capitals laid out parallel tracks: applying to the Connecting Europe funding facility, and testing investor appetite through a private-sector expression of interest from grid operators and utilities.
The project was first studied in 2018, when its cost was estimated at €800 million ($912 million), a figure Carvalho has since called outdated given changes in construction costs and technology.
Interest revived after the April 2025 blackout across Spain and Portugal, which exposed the Iberian Peninsula’s weak links to the rest of Europe. Iberia has only 3% of its electricity capacity connected to neighboring European countries, well below the EU’s 15% interconnection target for 2030.
Whether the cable runs directly under the sea or through existing Spanish infrastructure remains undecided. A meeting in Brussels and a Portugal-Morocco summit are expected in early 2027.
