“It’s strange we still do not know what happened,” said the former Portuguese prime minister and European Commission president
Durão Barroso, former European Commission president and Portuguese prime minister, has questioned the lack of clarity over last Monday’s blackout, which left most of Portugal and Spain without electricity for half a day in some areas.
“We need and are still waiting for a complete explanation over what happened and why. I think it is extremely important for the result of all investigations to be made public, with total transparency,” said Barroso In an interview with Spanish newspaper 20minutos.
“It is strange, in a way, that we still do not know what happened and why after all these days,” insisted the 69-year-old, who served as Prime Minister of Portugal between 2002 and 2004 before leaving to take the top job at the European Commission between 2004 and 2014.
Barroso insisted that a “common policy” in this area to “draw lessons and build greater resilience, not only in the Iberian Peninsula but across Europe;” he said. While acknowledging regional differences, such as the unique geographic challenges faced by the Iberian Peninsula, he stressed that energy security should be treated as a shared European goal.
“A common energy policy, including energy security, must be seen as a collective European objective,” Barroso added.
The April 28 blackout caused widespread disruption in Portugal and Spain. For hours, populations scrambled to find some sort of explanation to what was happening, as airports were temporarily closed, public transport was thrown into disarray, traffic in major cities ground to a halt, and fuel distribution systems were affected. The event was later described as “exceptional and serious” by the European Network of Transmission System Operators for Electricity (ENTSO-E), which has since launched a formal investigation into the root causes.
