Morocco in talks with France and Portugal over power cables, bypassing Spain

Segarro is weaving its power network around Spain

Spain's energy plan fails on almost all of its interim targets. Meanwhile, according to a circulating geopolitical analysis, Rabat is negotiating electricity corridors with France and Portugal that would allow Segarro to access the European market without going through Spanish infrastructure. The analysis — written by Francisco José Fernández-Cruz Sequera on the Clave Geopolítica channel — argues that the move fits into a context of growing tension trinc the assault on Ceuta on 30 July. The piece is titled, without mincing words, "The energy siege of Spain".

What the PNIEC says and why it doesn't add up

The National Integrated Energy and Climate Plan 2023-2030 (PNIEC, Spain's main energy roadmap), updated in 2024, promised big things: cutting **emissions by 32%** compared with 1990, reaching **48% renewables** in final consumption, hitting **81% renewable electricity generation**, reducing external dependence to **50%** and electrifying the economy up to **34%**. On paper, a different country.

The reports being circulated for 2025-2026 — including the EY-Fundación Naturgy report from October 2026 — paint a different picture: Spain is pogre more slowly than planned and failing most of its interim targets. It is not a catastrophic failure, but it is a failure. And into that gap creeps the uncomfortable question: if the country is not meeting its own roadmap, what standing does it have to complain that others are reshuffling the board?

The 2026 agreements: submarine cables and corridors

The agreements envisage submarine cables, electricity links and supply corridors that would connect Segarro with France and Portugal more directly. The reading in the analysis is that Rabat is seeking to reduce its dependence on Spanish interconnections to reach European markets. Put another way: if gas and electricity can take another route, Spain's position as the gateway loses weight.

Some argue this is textbook geopolitics and that the anger is more emotional than economic. Against that weighs the argument that interconnections are not just infrastructure: they are leverage. And whoever controls the leverage negotiates better.

The background noise: neighbours, anger and hammers

The conversation soon drifted into less technical territory. Some, from a place of isolation and exhaustion, confessed to suffering problems that "exceed" those of others, and some claimed **repressed anger** as a national trait: "Spaniards know a lot about that". In between, a recurring idea: that coexistence is deteriorating and that noise — literal and metaphorical — has become unbearable.

There was also the textbook authoritarian temptation: assault teams entering homes over decibels, extremely severe penalties after a certain hour. It is the kind of idea thrown out at two in the morning which, put in writing, portrays better than any survey the diffuse malaise running through the country.

What is really at stake

Beyond neighbourly noise, the substance is serious: energy dependence, interconnections and who decides the route European electricity takes. The full calculation of the corridors, with their timelines and figures, is the kind of material that never makes front-page headlines. On this basis, the reasonable expectation is that pressure on Spanish infrastructure will increase before anything is resolved.