Race against time, with the energy game that is played entirely on international tables. The challenge-relaunch of Galsi, the gas pipeline between Algeria, Sardinia and Europe, officially announced by the Government of Algiers in recent days, had the effect of overcoming the delays on the most ambitious of objectives: combining the emergency with the future ecological transition. Not even a week has passed since the Algerian Energy Minister, Mohamed Abkar, put the "New Galsi" project on paper, before the antagonists on the energy arena have deployed the first countermoves.
The Euromed blitz
In a strategic energy summit reserved only for France, Spain and Portugal, the three prime ministers launched the H2Med project, an interconnection plan between Mediterranean shores to build an underwater pipeline for green hydrogen. An investment of 2.5 billion to connect the Iberian Peninsula to the rest of the European continent. A strategic project that has already had an initial endorsement from the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, who did not miss the opportunity to relaunch the Brussels mantra: «We want to make hydrogen a central element of our energy system in the transition towards the goal of zero emissions". What took place in Alicante, before extending the summit to the other countries bordering the Mediterranean, including Italy, was the classic French leap forward which plays a leading role in the energy match. Moreover, Manuel Macron makes no secret of wanting to lead the new course of the transition by cornering Italy, if only for the eternal competition in the Maghreb theater, which has always been disputed in terms of gas and oil relations. The Franco-Spanish-Portuguese project is a starting point. The connection of the gas pipeline to the sea to transport green hydrogen to the shores of the three coastal states is only the first step to then aim at hooking up with North Africa. From this point of view, Italy has an advantage of no small importance, the willingness declared " apetis verbis" by the Algerian Government to build precisely that Hydrogen ready connection, already ready for the transport of hydrogen, which would constitute the true corridor for the ecological transition in the Mediterranean, with Sardinia as the protagonist and central. Galsi, according to Algiers' plans, should not modify the routes precisely to take advantage of all the authorizations already acquired over the years, modifying only the technology of the pipes and valves, according to the new zero-emission "fuel". The great race towards the future has therefore started. To tell the truth, precisely with Galsi and the Hydrogen Island project, Sardinia was ahead of everyone else by 20 years, but now it finds itself in the position of being able to use precisely those projects and that connection strategy between the North Africa and the first real island in the Mediterranean, to win the challenge of the hydrogen corridor.
Sardinia decisive
The Sardinian Region can and must play a decisive role in this match, putting its position on the Galsi relaunch project put forward by the Algerian government firmly, without hesitation, on the table of the Government of Giorgia Meloni. It is a match that could bring home a result that was unexpected and now abandoned until recently, but which is now becoming strategic and fundamental. Italy will have to have the capacity and geopolitical intelligence to precede any other project in this sense, not allowing Macron & company to continue dictating energy law. A new agreement between the Government and the Sardinian Region is essential to revoke that nefarious decree approved by the Draghi government. An agreement that is not low-key, but one that knows how to assign Sardinia a leading role in the energy scenario of the Mediterranean.
