The MidCat Pipeline was initially pitched as part of the broader EU effort to reduce the bloc's dependence on Russian energy imports by shipping more gas from the Iberian peninsula to the rest of Europe. The project was cut into two sections. The first part is called the South Transit East Pyrenees, or STEP, and is meant to continue the existing abandoned line into France for 120 km, at a cost of about €440 million. France would cover two-thirds of that. The goal was for construction to be completed by 2022. The more expensive second half of MidCat would follow, including reinforcing about 800 km of the gas network in France. The full project aims to add about 7.5 billion cubic meters of cross-border capacity, approximately doubling the amount of gas that can flow between the two countries.[2]

In 2015, the project was awarded a €4.15 million grant from the EU's Connecting Europe Facility for pre-construction studies as well as the public consultation for the implementation of the first phase of the project on the French side.[12]

The pipeline was cancelled in January of 2019 after being blocked by French regulators following a determination that the pipeline was not financially viable.[13] The €3 billion project – which was prioritized for EU support by EU Climate Commissioner Miguel Arias Cañete in the EU's list of 'Projects of Common Interest' (PCI list), alongside 100 other gas projects – was last April found to be not financially viable under most scenarios, in an official cost-benefit study. Its cancellation throws into doubt the validity and legitimacy of the criteria used by the European Commission to prioritize similar gas projects on the PCI list.[4]

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