Doha – The Spanish Minister of Foreign Affairs, European Union and Cooperation, José Manuel Albares, has expressed gratitude to Morocco for its support during the major power outage that affected Spain on April 28.
During his appearance today before the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Congress of Deputies, Albares thanked Morocco, along with France, for their assistance in quickly restarting Spain’s energy plants after the blackout.
“This is yet another demonstration of the excellent state of our relations with our neighbors, especially with Morocco,” stated the minister, recalling that during the recent visit to Madrid by his Moroccan counterpart, Nasser Bourita, he underscored that the two countries currently enjoy the “best relations in our history.”
The massive electrical failure on April 28 particularly affected the southern regions of the Iberian Peninsula. In Campo de Gibraltar, municipalities such as Algeciras, La Línea, San Roque, Los Barrios, and Tarifa experienced prolonged outages that in some cases extended until the following morning.
The Spanish government attributed the failure to a sudden disconnection of 15 gigawatts, which caused a domino effect across the network.
However, since the blackout, reports and theories have emerged since Pro-Russian “hacktivist” groups Dark Storm Team and NoName057 claimed responsibility with a cryptic message listing out the ministry sites they had reportedly hacked. Still, the Spanish government has stressed that they do not attribute the incident to a cyberattack.
During the crisis, Red Eléctrica Española (REE) requested support from Morocco through the two submarine lines that connect Tarifa with the Moroccan station of Fardioua, east of Tangier. These connections, part of a strategic infrastructure shared by both countries, have a combined capacity of 900 megawatts and played a crucial role in restoring supply.
Morocco mobilized up to 38% of its production capacity to deliver electricity to Spain through the two interconnection lines located under the Strait of Gibraltar. The two lines, put into service respectively in 1997 and 2006, have a total capacity of 1,400 megawatts under a voltage of 400 kilovolts.
Usually a net importer of electricity from Spain, Morocco reversed the energy flow at the request of the Spanish network operator. By the end of the day, the country was exporting 519 megawatts northward, after having imported 778 megawatts earlier in the day, according to data from the Electricity Maps platform.
The interconnection between the two countries is based on a double system of seven submarine cables linking Fardioua station, near Tangier, to Tarifa in Andalusia. This link, operational since 1988, spans a distance of 29 kilometers at a depth reaching 620 meters.
A third interconnection cable is currently under development, with co-financing from the National Office of Electricity and Drinking Water (ONEE) and Red Eléctrica, for an amount of €150 million, expected to enter service in 2026.
Morocco, Spain relationship multifaceted and growing
At the time of the blackout, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez also voiced his gratitude for Morocco’s solidarity in a televised statement: “Electricity has been restored in some regions of northern and southern Spain thanks to the interconnections with France and Morocco,” Sánchez said. “I want to thank these two countries for their solidarity at this time.”
In his address to Congress, Albares also pointed to two milestones in the bilateral relationship that began following Sánchez’s letter to King Mohammed VI, in which he stated that Morocco’s autonomy plan for Western Sahara is “the most serious, credible and realistic basis” for resolving the dispute.
The minister cited the “historic record” of €23 billion in commercial exchanges and the recent opening of the Melilla customs post, unilaterally closed by Morocco in 2018, along with the opening of a new customs office in Ceuta, where one had never existed before. This opening, which took place on February 11, fulfills “the political agreement” reached in the roadmap of April 7, 2022.
According to Albares, there is now a “daily passage of goods in both directions, from Monday to Friday.” The minister reported that 3.5 tons of fresh products and construction aggregates have crossed from Morocco to Spain, while hygiene and cleaning products, household appliances, and electronics have moved in the opposite direction.
Albares also took the opportunity to assert that good relations with Morocco “are not incompatible with having a very good relationship with Algeria,” as demonstrated by the fact that Spanish exports increased by 142% in 2024 compared to the previous year.
Read also: Pro-Russian Hackers Claim Responsibility for Major Power Outage Across Spain, Portugal
