This Friday, the European Network of Transmission System Operators for Electricity (Entso-E) published the long-awaited technical report on the blackout that left millions of citizens in Spain and Portugal without power on April 28.
Five months have passed since the most serious power failure in Europe in two decades, and the delay in releasing the report raises suspicions. Not only because of the overwhelmingly technical nature of its conclusions—which refer to overvoltage and cascading disconnections—but also because its recommendations point, once again, to a recurring solution in Brussels: more energy integration and a further step towards the centralization of competences.
The Entso-E expert panel describes the blackout as an unprecedented event on the continent. Unlike other electrical collapses caused by drops in voltage, in the Iberian Peninsula, the system collapsed due to an excess of voltage that triggered a series of disconnections of solar and wind plants. The result was the loss of more than 2,200 MW within minutes and the disconnection of the peninsula from the rest of Europe on April 28.
Although the report details the technical aspects of the collapse with great precision, it avoids naming those responsible for it. Neither Spain’s Red Eléctrica, nor the Spanish Government, nor the renewable operators appear as directly responsible, and definitive recommendations are postponed until 2026. This is a difficult wait to justify for an event that affected two entire Member States, left millions of families and companies in uncertainty, and caused hundreds of millions of euros in losses.
The main implicit recommendation of the report is to move forward with a more interconnected European energy network. According to the European Commission, the transition towards renewables requires a common and centralized infrastructure. Spain and Portugal, which depend heavily on renewable generation, would be forced to adapt their systems to the rules and procedures set by Brussels, thereby diluting the States’ capacity to decide over their own electricity supply.
This is not the first time the European Union has turned a crisis into an opportunity to advance its centralizing project. It happened with the pandemic, with climate policy, and now with energy. The formula repeats itself: in the face of a failure or a threat, the immediate prescription is more power for Brussels.
Javier Villamor is a Spanish journalist and analyst. Based in Brussels, he covers NATO and EU affairs at europeanconservative.com. Javier has over 17 years of experience in international politics, defense, and security. He also works as a consultant providing strategic insights into global affairs and geopolitical dynamics.
