The Liberal Initiative (IL) party has highlighted in a formal request that a recent power outage exposed vulnerabilities in Portugal’s preparation and response to energy crises. The European Network of Transmission System Operators for Electricity (ENTSO-E) classified the incident as the “most severe on an international scale.”
“In Portugal, despite a multi-year investment plan to strengthen energy resilience, the incident revealed serious deficiencies in operational response, SIRESP’s functioning, Civil Protection’s action capacity, and public communication,” the document states.
The party particularly emphasizes that the “potential effects of the outage on hospitals, telecommunications, and transportation were especially concerning.”
In this context, IL believes that the Assembly of the Republic “must rigorously and responsibly follow this process,” regardless of the ongoing formal investigation, by “urgently and thoroughly hearing the entities involved in the management, regulation, and response to the incident.”
“The purpose of the hearings is to identify what went wrong, understand systemic risks, contribute to concrete solutions, and technically clarify the causes and failures associated with the April 28 blackout, assess the degree of public entities’ preparation for energy crisis scenarios,” it notes.
IL also aims to “identify failures in coordination and communication mechanisms between authorities, present concrete solutions for strengthening the resilience of the electric grid and civil readiness, and monitor the implementation of planned investments to mitigate this type of risk.”
Consequently, the party is requesting an urgent hearing with several ministers from the areas of Environment and Energy, Economy and Territorial Cohesion, Infrastructure, Internal Administration, and the Presidency.
Among the 12 individuals IL seeks to hear in parliament are also former Minister of Internal Administration Margarida Blasco and leaders from entities such as the National Authority for Emergency and Civil Protection (ANEPC), the National Communications Authority (ANACOM), SIRESP, and the National Energy Sector Authority (ENSE).
IL proposes that these hearings be conducted jointly by three parliamentary committees: the Committee on Constitutional Affairs, Rights, Freedoms and Guarantees, the Committee on State Reform and Local Power, and the Committee on Infrastructure, Mobility and Housing.
