Spain and Portugal set up a monitoring group to identify the cause of the power supply disruption

The Vice-President of the Government and Minister for Ecological Transition and Demographic Challenge, Sara Aagesen, during the virtual meeting with the Portuguese Minister for the Environment and Energy, María da Graça Carvalho

Spain and Portugal will work together to identify the cause of the power supply disruption experienced in the Iberian Peninsula on Monday 28 April through a monitoring group set up for this purpose. This was agreed by the Vice-President of the Government and Minister for Ecological Transition and Demographic Challenge, Sara Aagesen, and the Portuguese Minister for the Environment and Energy, María da Graça Carvalho, during an online meeting in which the Secretaries of State for Energy of both countries also took part.

"We have been able to share a collaboration that began on the first day," said Aagesen in assessing the meeting, before adding that "it is not only for exchanging data, but also collaborating to identify the incident, the cause, and above all to take the necessary measures to prevent it from happening again."

Both countries have decided to maintain a coordinated approach with regard to the information to be submitted to different European bodies, such as Entso-e or the European Commission itself, for the preparation of the relevant reports. Aagesen and Carvalho have agreed to meet again online and to intensify governmental contacts at the highest level.

In addition to this reinforcement of institutional collaboration with a European perspective, both countries are going to create a specific monitoring group to analyse the circumstances of what happened, "a more formal group, a group that will be led by the Portuguese minister and myself with the presence of both energy secretaries," said Aagesen.

In addition to increasing relations with Portugal, Vice-President Aagesen has sent letters to the French and Moroccan authorities, thanking them for their support and requesting information to help clarify the power outage.

Non official translation