Pedro Sánchez: "We will hold private operators accountable and activate the necessary measures to ensure that this does not happen again"

Moncloa Palace, Madrid

King Felipe VI presides over the extraordinary meeting of the National Security Council held at Moncloa Palace (Pool Moncloa/Fernando Calvo)

Pedro Sánchez has assured that "Spain, fortunately and with all due caution, has now overcome the worst of the crisis and is walking steadily towards the recovery of full normality", as at 6 a.m. "more than 99.5% of the total supply" had been re-established. This level was maintained even at the peak of demand, which occurred at around 8.30 a.m. The head of the Executive wanted to emphasise that "the system has reacted with agility, public and private actors have acted efficiently, and coordination between administrations has been excellent and loyal."

Although normality is returning to most of the country's municipalities and no incidents have been recorded during the night, Sánchez said that the main obstacles persist in rail traffic, and throughout the night some 35,000 passengers who had been trapped on trains were helped, tracks were freed and many local, medium and long-distance routes were recovered. In addition, there are still several points in the country without service and the technicians of Adif, Renfe and the other private operators "are working tirelessly to restore them as soon as possible," he said.

A clear symptom of this improvement, the President explained, is that several of the eight autonomous communities that activated emergency level 3 yesterday "have expressed their intention to return to level 2 very soon".

In any case, he guaranteed that "neither the public administrations nor the private operators are going to lower their guard and the emergency protocols and the declaration of electricity crisis are still activated." The UME will also continue to provide support to individuals and municipalities, and the Government has decided in the Council of Ministers to release three days of strategic petroleum product reserves for generators that may need them, he confirmed.

The Government will get to the bottom of the issue

The President of the Government of Spain, Pedro Sánchez, during the press conference | Pool Moncloa / Jose Manuel Álvarez

Pedro Sánchez pointed out that the two clear priorities for the Government are, firstly, "to consolidate the restoration of our electricity system to 100%" and to this end there are numerous teams deployed on the ground and today the system will be operated in an intervened, "fail-safe" way, with synchronous generation. And the second priority is to "find out what happened and take the necessary measures to ensure that it does not happen again."

Regarding the causes, he explained that Red Eléctrica's technicians "are still carrying out an analysis of their system and we expect to receive their preliminary results in the next few days." And that, in parallel, the private energy generating companies are carrying out an analysis of the telemetry of their production and management centres, something that should allow us to know in greater detail what happened in those five seconds that precipitated the system's collapse.

"The public must be clear that the Government will get to the bottom of this issue. That reforms will be carried out and the necessary measures will be taken and that we will demand all the relevant responsibilities from the private operators," he remarked.

To this end, the President announced the creation of an investigation commission led by the Ministry of Ecological Transition, which will include contributions from various bodies such as the National Markets and Competition Commission. In addition, he announced that the National Security Council has agreed to ask the European Electricity Coordination Group, which reports to the European Commission, and the independent regulators, to produce an independent report from Brussels. At the same time, in terms of cybersecurity, the head of the Executive explained that INCIBE and the National Cryptologic Centre are already examining the computer records of Red Eléctrica and private operators "so as not to rule out any hypothesis".

In this regard, he recalled that Red Eléctrica rules out any cyber-attack, but the Government's responsibility is to make an independent analysis and not rule out any hypothesis. Therefore, the results of all these analyses will be made public and presented to the media and Parliament with full transparency, he said. In fact, Pedro Sánchez has announced that he will ask the Lower House of Parliament to make this issue the subject of his appearance on 7 May.

"But above all, the results of these investigations will be used to strengthen our electricity system. Because it is clear that what happened yesterday can never happen again," he stressed.

Haste must not lead to misinformation

The President of the Government of Spain, Pedro Sánchez, during the press conference | Pool Moncloa / Jose Manuel Álvarez

During the appearance, the President insisted that the Government will answer all the questions that may arise, but "haste must not lead to disinformation or error", as the electricity system is enormously complex and the data to be analysed is enormous and often decentralised. "It takes time. The public will be aware of all developments in real time, as they happen, and the parliamentary groups and the autonomous communities will also be duly informed."

He therefore urged people to ignore the noise and the many hoaxes that are circulating and to get information through official channels and said that "there is no conclusive evidence to say that yesterday's event was caused by a terrorist attack or an experiment."

He also wanted to clarify that "there was no problem of excess renewables, nor was there a problem of lack of coverage, of unsatisfied demand," and that "those who are linking this incident to the lack of nuclear power are either lying or showing their ignorance." "The recovery of supply has been achieved thanks to interconnections with France and Morocco, combined cycle gas plants, and hydroelectric plants," he explained.

The President wanted to highlight the great resilience of our system, which "proved to be one of the most advanced in the world" and the civic response of the citizens, who rose to the challenge as in previous crises. In his opinion, "Spain passed a very tough test yesterday and once again projected to the world the image of a country that knows how to face any adversity with efficiency, but also with solidarity."

Finally, Pedro Sánchez announced that the National Security Council will meet again today at 2 p.m. and from 7 p.m., and that an Extraordinary Council of Ministers will be held tomorrow to approve some of the measures that had to be postponed due to the electricity crisis.

Non official translation