Barcelona, May 6, 2025 (Lusa) - The President of the European Council, António Costa, has advocated more energy interconnections in the European Union (EU) to reduce the risk of blackouts like last week's in the Iberian Peninsula, calling for investments in network security.
"We must continue to improve the Union's energy integration and interconnection because this will also help to reduce the risk of incidents and blackouts like last week's on the Iberian Peninsula," said António Costa.
Speaking during a visit to the Spanish city of Barcelona, at the Cercle d'Economia civic association for public debate, the institution's leader, who brings together the EU's heads of government and state, emphasised that it was "essential to increase investment in network security".
"We are also taking measures to ensure that electricity prices are no longer dependent on the volatility of fossil fuel prices," said António Costa, on the day that the European Commission will present a plan for the EU to stop depending on energy from Russia by 2027.
As an example, António Costa said that "the Iberian solution offered lessons on how to move forward so that citizens and companies benefit from cheap, clean and secure energy", in an allusion to the temporary and exceptional mechanism created after the 2022 energy crisis to contain the weight of gas in electricity production and thus lower the price of electricity.
In this speech, the President of the European Council also made an analogy between the EU and a historical monument: "Perhaps the European Union is a bit like the Sagrada Familia [because it is] an enormous, elaborate, idealistic project of historic dimensions."
"A project with a tremendously complex architecture, perpetually unfinished, in which each new generation contributes its grain of sand to respond to the challenges of its time. A project that sometimes stagnates, but always moves forward with determination, because it is guided by a bold and ambitious vision of the future," he said.
On Monday of last week, a generalised power cut left mainland Portugal, Spain and Andorra practically without electricity and part of France.
Closed airports, transport and traffic congestion in major cities and fuel shortages were some consequences of the blackout.
ANE/ADB // ADB.
Lusa
