A massive power outage that left millions without electricity for up to ten hours has sparked a diplomatic row between Portugal and France. The blackout, which affected Spain, Portugal, and parts of southern France on April 28, has been described as the largest in recent European history. Portugal’s Energy Minister, Maria da Graca Carvalho, has blamed France for the shortage of electricity supplies, citing the country’s failure to complete and expand critical interconnections with Spain.
According to Carvalho, the weak links between France and Spain restricted cross-border energy support, exacerbating the blackout. She claims that the European Commission has the authority to intervene in the matter under EU law, and has urged the Commission to step in to ensure the internal market is not compromised. “We will involve the president of the EC on this to make sure that we are all integrated,” she said, emphasizing that the issue is a European problem rather than a bilateral one between the three countries.
The Iberian Peninsula has some of the lowest energy connectivity levels in the EU, making it vulnerable to power outages. When Spain’s system began to fail, power links between France and Spain were automatically disconnected to safeguard the wider European grid. An initial investigation by Spanish Minister for Ecological Transition Sara Aagesen revealed that power generation failures in the provinces of Granada, Badajoz, and Seville triggered a chain reaction of grid disconnections. A preliminary technical assessment by Entso-E, the European association of transmission system operators, reported that 2.2 gigawatts of capacity went offline in southern Spain less than a minute before the full system collapse.
The root causes of the substation failures remain under investigation, but it is clear that the lack of investment in infrastructure has left the region’s energy market vulnerable. Carvalho’s call for the European Commission to pressure France into accelerating work on infrastructure highlights the need for a coordinated approach to address the region’s energy connectivity issues. As the EU continues to grapple with the challenges of integrating its internal energy market, the recent power outage serves as a stark reminder of the importance of investing in critical infrastructure to ensure a reliable and efficient energy supply.
