CdM | The president of the CEOE employers’ association, Antonio Garamendi, has put the impact of yesterday’s blackout at 0.1% of GDP, some €1.6 billion, and has pointed to the Insurance Compensation Consortium for possible claims.”It is a huge impact”, said Garamendi in statements to the media at the Nueva Economía Forum breakfast, where he gave as an example that the refineries will take weeks to start up or the damage that the industry’s blast furnaces may have suffered.
Regarding possible compensation, the business leader said that he is still looking into the matter “but that it may be something that corresponds to the Insurance Compensation Consortium”.
Garamendi also regretted that there was not more information about what happened.”I think that the government should have been quicker and should have been permanently informing us,” he said. He also criticised the fact that the Ministry of Labour had to point out yesterday that it should be the employers who have to bear the cost of absences from work. “They don’t have to give us warnings because we already know what to do out of pure social responsibility, which is what we do all the time,” he added. At around 12:30 yesterday, mainland Spain and Portugal experienced a widespread power blackout that caused multiple problems for transport and the activity of citizens and businesses.
By 07:00 hours, 99.95% of the peninsular energy demand had been recovered.
