MADRID (Reuters) -The state should take 100% control of the Spanish grid operator, Spain’s Deputy Prime Minister Yolanda Díaz said on Thursday, days after the country suffered its worst blackout.
Red Electrica, known as REE, is 20%-owned by the state and the rest is in private hands.
“REE is a private monopoly. This cannot be like this,” Diaz said in an interview on Spanish television channel TVE.
Diaz is also labour minister and a member of the far-left Sumar party, which is a junior partner in Spain’s coalition government.
She said the Socialist Party, the senior partner, did not agree the state should take full control.
Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said a government investigation was under way into the power outage that halted trains, shut airports and trapped people in lifts on Monday across the Iberian peninsula.
As part of the inquiry, investigators from Spain’s cybersecurity agency, INCIBE, and the CNI intelligence service will seek information from the grid operator and private energy companies, including through visits to their offices, two sources told Reuters, speaking on condition of anonymity.
(Reporting by Graham Keeley; editing by Barbara Lewis)
