Working closely with national electricity grid operators, Brussels will “look very closely” into the reasons for the outage, how well the EU was prepared and what lessons “can be drawn from such an incident”, chief commission spokeswoman Paula Pinho said.
The commission refused to speculate on what may have caused the outage.
An EU official, who did not wish to be named, said the blackout should be classified as a “major” level 3 electrical incident, the EU’s highest level for such events.
A panel will then have six months to investigate the incident and submit a report.
Brussels is also now pushing for bolstered electricity connections between Spain, Portugal and the rest of continental Europe.
“Having a more interconnected system in the EU is better for everyone, for market integration, for security of supply,” the official said.
