A two to three-hour blackout has hit the Basque Country and the entire Iberian Peninsula hard. Around 12:30 p.m. on Monday, the electricity in the Southern Basque Country started to return about an hour in most of the villages, despite the differences. However, the Basque Government reports that at night they had electricity in 96% of the villages, which sometimes remained unrecovered by 22:00 at night. The president of Spain, Pedro Sánchez, made an appearance around six o'clock in the afternoon to demand "tranquility".

The Spanish president appeared again at almost 11 p.m. and explained that something "never seen" happened at 12:33 p.m.: according to him, the power grid has lost fifteen gigawatts in just five seconds, that is, 60% of the energy that was being consumed in the entire state at that time. Sánchez points out that all hypotheses and avenues of investigation remain open.The Portuguese electric operator REN claims that a "strange atmospheric phenomenon" has occurred, which has caused a major problem in the Spanish electricity grid.For his part, the director of REE Red Eléctrica Española, Eduardo Prieto, attributes the blackout to the "great oscillation" of the flow of power, rejecting the fact that it was a cybersecurity event.

All of the above has already been repeated in the media in the Basque Country and throughout the state, but has there been enough mention of what this incident has revealed? Among other things, two main issues: a problem that occurred in just five seconds has paralyzed all the services throughout the Iberian Peninsula for several hours and has not yet returned to full normality in the Basque Country, among others. This is the example of our dependence on energy consumption in today’s society.

A week ago, the Spanish Government announced that it will allocate an additional 10,471 million euros to the Defense, so that by the end of the year the expenditure destined to the military budget will be 2% of the country’s gross domestic product. In the meantime, do you see the same level of commitment to the services that were most affected during yesterday’s blackout? For example, did you have to turn on emergency generators because of electricity going with Osakidetza or the suburban train service that hasn’t been restarted until Tuesday morning?

The need for an alternative, more obvious than ever

The shortcomings of the current energy system, as well as the need to reverse them, have been highlighted in the wake of the blackout. That’s why Izarkom’s technical manager, Asier Altualde, spoke on the radio. "A more centralized and cross-referenced system of this type", Altualde proclaimed in this interview, since problems such as the one that occurred on Monday "would have a more reduced impact" on the population. "The sovereignty of the Basque Country" is anchored in this vision, explains the technical manager of Izarkom, who hopes that the blackout will have an impact on the consciences, in particular, to spread the belief that the Basques themselves should manage the resources allocated to them to more and more people.

You can't get Gaza out of your head

Those who have been reminded of the situation of the Palestinians in Gaza have also been in those hours of instability and nervousness: "If a two- or three-hour blackout has caused us so much damage, how will everyday life be in Gaza? ", has been the most common question among social media users. In fact, what is unusual here has become a daily bread for them because of the Israeli genocide. Hospitals that have ceased to operate normally, foods that Israel has obstructed access to the list and/or drinking water that is increasingly scarce on the list are already common.

And all this has been carried out by Israel with the complicity and collaboration of Western countries, including Spain.Although it officially recognized the State of Palestine in May last year, the Spanish Government continues to maintain both diplomatic and economic relations with Israel, which strikes hard every day against the population of that country. For example, the country’s Ministry of the Interior had planned to buy about 15 million bullets from the Israeli company Guardian Defense & Homeland Security S.A. until last week, although it was eventually suspended due to criticism.