Portugal and Morocco will ask the European Commission to consider a long-mooted power interconnector between the two countries as a candidate ​for EU funding, they said on Monday, while also exploring ‌private-sector investment.

A crippling power blackout in Spain and Portugal in April 2025 exposed the Iberian Peninsula's limited electricity links with the rest of Europe, helping revive plans for a Portugal-Morocco link ​first studied in 2018.

Iberia has only 3% of its electricity capacity ​connected to neighbouring European countries, well short of the EU's ⁠15% interconnection target for 2030.

Such a link with Morocco would strengthen energy security ​in Portugal, currently only connected to Spain, by providing an additional source of ​power in the event of disruptions.

Portugal's Energy Minister Maria da Graca Carvalho said Lisbon and Rabat had agreed to raise the prospect of the power link being considered an ​Important Project of Common European Interest (IPCEI) with EC Executive Vice-President Teresa Ribera.

A new ​Europe-Africa electricity connection would strengthen both continents' energy security and cooperation, Carvalho said.

"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 meeting Morocco's Energy Transition Minister Leila Benali.

Portugal and Morocco will pursue two tracks simultaneously — seeking access to the EU's Connecting Europe funding facility and testing investor appetite through a private-sector expression-of-interest process from grid operators and utilities.

"We don't want to overcharge ​our contributors or our consumers," Carvalho said.

Benali said the two ​countries wanted "to ⁠ensure that we decrease costs, especially the affordability of energy access" for both populations and a number of sectors.

Carvalho said it was still too early to ⁠say whether ​the project would involve a direct subsea ​cable between Portugal and Morocco or make use of infrastructure via Spain, which already has an electricity ​interconnection with the North African country.