María Guardiola, the President of the Junta de Extremadura, has formally requested a detailed and credible report from Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez regarding the causes of a widespread power outage that affected the Iberian Peninsula on April 28. In a letter sent to Sánchez, Guardiola criticized the lack of official information five days after the incident, asserting that this absence fosters the spread of rumors and misinformation, thereby undermining public trust in governmental institutions.

The letter, dated May 2, follows preliminary remarks from Red Eléctrica suggesting that a drop in photovoltaic generation in the southwestern region may have triggered the outage.

However, the government has maintained a cautious stance, refraining from confirming this hypothesis and has commissioned two independent reports to investigate the causes of the incident.

In her communication, Guardiola did not reference the initial assessment from the electrical operator.

Instead, she respectfully urged Sánchez to provide all relevant information regarding the event as swiftly as possible, so that it can be conveyed to the regional parliament and the public, thereby ensuring the right to information and institutional transparency.

Guardiola emphasized the necessity for the Spanish government to offer a reasoned and transparent explanation of the outage's causes, as well as the measures being implemented or proposed both in the short and long term to prevent a recurrence.

She expressed significant concern over the implications of the blackout, which resulted not only in the temporary loss of telecommunication services but also posed risks to hospitals, care homes, schools, and other administrative bodies, creating unjustified alarm among the population.

The uncertainty, she noted, extended to public and private sectors reliant on a secure and stable power infrastructure.

On the day of the power outage, Extremadura was one of eight autonomous communities—including Madrid, Andalucía, Castilla-La Mancha, Comunidad Valenciana, Galicia, La Rioja, and the Region of Murcia—to request a Level 3 emergency declaration under the Civil Protection Law.

This designation mandates that the government, via the Ministry of the Interior, coordinate the necessary actions to mitigate the effects of the incident, as well as manage all state, regional, and local resources required for this purpose.

The following day, six of the requesting regions opted to lower their emergency levels; however, Madrid and Extremadura did not.

Guardiola maintained that the national emergency situation remained 'active' and emphasized that it was the responsibility of the central government to determine when this emergency status should be lifted.

Ultimately, on the Wednesday following the incident, the Ministry of the Interior rescinded the emergency declaration in both Madrid and Extremadura after the regional governments confirmed that all public services had returned to normal operation.