<h6><strong>Eduardo González</strong></h6> <h4><strong>The President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, announced this Tuesday the launch of a commission of inquiry to determine the causes of Monday's power outage and announced that he has asked the European Commission to provide its own "independent report" on what happened.</strong></h4> "Right now, the Government has two clear priorities," declared the Prime Minister at the press conference following the Council of Ministers meeting and the extraordinary meeting of the National Security Council, chaired by the King. In addition to Pedro Sánchez, the three vice presidents attended: the Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares; the Minister of Defense, Margarita Robles; the Minister of the Interior, Fernando Grande-Marlaska; the Minister of Transport and Sustainable Mobility, Óscar Puente; and the Minister of the Presidency, Félix Bolaños. Also participating in the meeting were the heads of Industry and Tourism, Health, Science, Innovation and Universities, and Digital Transformation and the Civil Service, as well as the Chief of the Defense Staff, Admiral Teodoro López Calderón; the director of the National Institute of National Security (CNI), Esperanza Casteleiro; and the director of the Department of National Security, Loreto Gutiérrez. The government's first priority, Sánchez stated, is "to consolidate the restoration of our electrical system to 100%," and the second priority is "to discover what happened and adopt the necessary measures to ensure this doesn't happen again." "Red Eléctrica technicians continue to analyze their system. We expect to receive their preliminary results in the coming hours, if not days," he added. He also announced the launch of an investigative commission, under the National Security Council, led by the Ministry of Ecological Transition and with input from cybersecurity agencies. The commission will conduct "an independent analysis" to clarify the causes of the blackout, utilizing "all the resources" of the State. "In parallel, private energy generating companies are conducting telemetry analyses of their production and management centers, which should ultimately allow us to understand in greater detail what happened in those five seconds that precipitated the system failure," he added. Sánchez welcomed the Red Eléctrica report (prepared jointly with the National Cybersecurity Institute (INCIBE) and the National Intelligence Center (CNI), which rules out "a cybersecurity incident" and warns against any "speculation" about the causes. He asserted that, in the same way that "it would be imprudent to rule out any hypothesis," it would also be "imprudent to point the finger at one hypothesis or another" before due investigation. When the results of the investigation are available, he assured, the Government will present them to Parliament "with absolute transparency." In this regard, he announced that he will also report on the power outage during his scheduled appearance in Congress on May 7 to discuss security and defense. In response to criticism from the Popular Party for waiting until six o'clock on Monday evening to release the first details about the blackout, Sánchez asserted that "the Government appears when it has information." Meanwhile, National Court Judge José Luis Calama has initiated preliminary proceedings to investigate whether the blackout in the Spanish electricity grid could have been "an act of cyber sabotage against critical Spanish infrastructure" and, if so, "would fall under the crime of terrorism under Article 573.1 and 2 of the Criminal Code." According to a press release from the National Court, the judge has asked the National Christological Center and Red Eléctrica Corporación SA to prepare reports within a non-extendable period of ten days, indicating the cause(s) that led to the blackout. He has also requested that the Police Intelligence Headquarters submit a preliminary report on the events within ten days. Calama believes that, although the cause of the events remains unknown at this time, "cyberterrorism is among the possible causes." <h5><strong>Petition to Brussels</strong></h5> On the other hand, the Prime Minister stated at the press conference that the National Security Council "has agreed to ask the European Electricity Coordination Group to prepare an independent report from Brussels to obtain a much more accurate and credible picture of what happened during these critical hours we suffered yesterday and today." According to Sánchez, although the electricity interconnection between Spain and the rest of the EU is only "3 percent (compared to the 10 percent planned for 2020 and the 15 percent agreed for 2023)," Spain is part of "a single European market and needs a European perspective." Specifically, the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, and the President of the European Council, António Costa, conveyed the EU's support to Sánchez on Monday. "I have reaffirmed the European Commission's support in monitoring the situation with national and European authorities and our Electricity Coordination Group," the German leader stated on social media. NATO sources cited by the Europa Press news agency have confirmed that the Alliance is closely monitoring the events in Spain and Portugal through its Euro-Atlantic Disaster Response Coordination Centre (EADRCC), but have warned that it is up to national authorities to investigate the causes, including possible sabotage, of the power grid failure. NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte held a telephone conversation with Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez on Monday to discuss the issue.
