Today in Strasbourg, during the European Parliament’s plenary session, a debate took place titled “Resilience and the Need to Improve Interconnections in the EU’s Electricity Grid Infrastructure: Initial Lessons from the Power System Failure on the Iberian Peninsula," in connection with the blackout that affected nearly all of mainland Spain and Portugal on April 28.
MEPs Patryk Jaki and Daniel Obajtek spoke during the debate.
Patryk Jaki stated that the Spanish people were left without power, while the EU continues to claim it does not know what happened. “It’s actually funny that you’re trying so hard not to admit what everyone already knows. Namely, that green policies—for which you are responsible—are to blame,” said the MEP. As he recalled, on April 16, for the first time in history, the Spanish boasted that they were relying solely on renewable energy, “which was proudly announced by the left-wing government.” “And moments later, 55 million people were left without power,” Jaki noted, pointing out that the cause is obvious. He explained that an excess of electricity had been generated, and due to the excessive share of renewable energy sources, too few synchronous generators—which possess so-called “inertia,” or stable energy sources that the EU opposes just as strongly as nuclear or coal-fired power—were in operation. “You simply want to defy the laws of physics; you want to defy science, believing that this will prevent the planet from burning up. What an absurdity!” — Jaki emphasized. As he explained, as a result of the EU’s green policies, energy in Europe is becoming increasingly expensive; EU companies are consequently losing their competitiveness, and Europe is losing its significance. “And on top of that, you’re putting citizens at risk of a blackout. For Eastern and Central Europe, this is an open invitation to Putin,” the PiS politician warned, drawing an analogy to Nord Stream, which the United Right government had previously warned against. “What do you intend to do about this?” asked the PiS politician, pointing out that the only proposals put forward involve using funds from European taxes. “So first you make people pay ‘green taxes,’ and now they have to chip in even more because this policy isn’t working. We must finally put an end to this green madness,” appealed the ECR leader.
Daniel Obajtek noted that by pushing its green agenda, the EU itself had led to the situation Spain found itself in on April 28. “You can’t cheat the laws of physics—there’s no such thing as zero-emission energy without conventional power plants. You have to understand this,” he emphasized. He added that there will be no conventional power plants without projects, regulations, rapid investments, and, above all, capital and a stable European Union policy in this area. “We can’t keep debating forever what is carbon-intensive and what isn’t—after all, we already know that,” added the PiS politician, arguing that we must accept this reality and carry out a technological transformation based on logic, economic calculations, and the laws of physics. “And that logic is missing. We cannot stake everything on zero-emission energy. We must also invest in nuclear energy—in large-scale nuclear plants, small modular reactors, natural gas, and coal-fired power plants,” he emphasized.
