No explanations or arguments about the blackout

The appearance of Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez in Congress to explain the April 28th power outage and the increase in defense and security investment was completely disappointing. In reality, neither the government offered any explanations beyond what we all already knew, namely, that it will still take a long time to know exactly what caused the widespread power outage, nor did the opposition offer any compelling arguments beyond embracing a discourse somewhere between catastrophic and apocalyptic, which also doesn't match reality.

Sánchez may be right from a technical point of view, given the complexity of the electrical system, but the truth is that the public expected him to provide some new details this Wednesday that would help understand what happened. And it's not just about establishing the facts microsecond by microsecond, but about assuming the relevant responsibilities. Because the opposition is right about one thing, and that is that such a fiasco should have some consequences beyond booing the electricity companies, which is the easy path Sánchez seems to have chosen for the moment.

But if the Spanish executive is not up to the task, the opposition's attitude is even worse. Turning the blackout into a crusade in favor of nuclear power, as the PP and Vox seem to be doing, is completely wrong. Thinking that renewable energy, which is what is now turning Spain into a powerhouse, must be curbed instead of emphasizing the adaptation of the grid to this new reality, is unheard of. Furthermore, the PP is in complete contradiction because it is precisely the popular autonomous communities that are at the forefront of clean and cheap energy: Castilla y León, Aragón, Andalucía, and Galicia are major producers of wind and solar energy, which they have taken advantage of to reindustrialize, while others, like Catalonia, are far ahead. Feijóo will say that his own men Are they apostles of "climate fanaticism" and what have they done wrong with this commitment? The PP's hypocrisy in this area is colossal.

The other major thrust of the opposition is to present a Spain on the brink of "generalized collapse," where nothing works because of an ineffective and corrupt government. Well, this isn't true either. There are problems, it's true, and in Catalonia we suffer them every day, for example, with the commuter trains, but we're not in a dystopian series either, and the civic and exemplary behavior of the population during the blackout demonstrates the great distance that sometimes exists between the real world and political discourse.

Now, Sánchez must keep his promise and will have to offer in the coming weeks not only a detailed explanation of what happened on April 28th, but also a plan to ensure it doesn't happen again, since a second blackout would increase the psychosis and have disastrous effects on the public. And the opposition must be told that, instead of telling horror stories that are more wishful thinking than reality, it would also be good to make some positive proposals once in a while.