Ireland’s European Commissioner, Michael McGrath, has cancelled a planned official visit to Spain.
Spain and Portugal is suffering a major electricity blackout. According to the portugese energy operator, the massive outage has been cased by a “rare atmospheric phenomenon”.
“At this point, there are no indications of any cyber attack”, according to the President of the European Council, António Costa, after he spoke to the Portuguese Prime Minister.
The European Commission is monitoring the situation. Repowering the network is thought to be a complex operation which could take several days to complete.
An EU official said “there are protocols in place to restore the functioning of the system”.
Former Irish Minister, Michael McGrath, who is now European Commissioner for Democracy, Justice, the Rule of Law and Consumer Protection, was supposed to be in Spain tomorrow.
He was due to meet the Spanish Foreign Minister, the Minister for Justice and representatives of a Spanish consumer organisation before giving a speech to the Spanish Parliament’s Joint Committee for the EU.
Those meetings have now been cancelled.
“Due to the major power outage in the Iberian Peninsula, I have decided to cancel my mission to Madrid. I plan to reschedule in the near future”, McGrath promised.
“I wish the Spanish authorities every success in their efforts on the ground.”