Power Outage and Blackout Games: How the EU May be Using Fear to Tighten Social Control as Geopolitical Tensions Rise

Amid the cascading consequences, a more unsettling narrative is emerging—one that raises questions about political timing, institutional preparedness, and the weaponization of fear.

By Prof. Ruel F. Pepa in GlobalResearch.ca

On 28 April 2025, vast swathes of Spain and Portugal were plunged into darkness for over 10 hours in what is now being called one of the most severe and unexplained power outages in recent European memory.

While energy officials scramble for explanations—citing “technical failures” and vague “grid issues”—a more disturbing picture is coming into focus: one that suggests this blackout was not simply a failure of infrastructure but a symptom of a coordinated political conditioning campaign.

For weeks prior, European Union-aligned institutions and digital mouthpieces had been whispering the same warning: “Prepare for an emergency.” Citizens across the bloc were advised to stockpile essentials—water, canned food, first-aid kits, flashlights. The timing now seems suspiciously prescient. Was this public service, or psychological priming?

The power outage—which conveniently occurred in two of the EU’s more restive southern states—created a perfect storm of fear, chaos, and uncertainty. And amid the flickering candles and cold stovetops, the EU’s narrative machinery quietly moved into gear. Social media channels, think tanks, and political commentators subtly seeded the idea that these outages could be linked to foreign sabotage—Russia, of course, being the implied culprit, even without a shred of hard evidence.

The irony is bitter. As the war in Ukraine drags into its third year, public fatigue is growing, support is eroding, and questions are multiplying. What better way to renew urgency and redirect attention than through a manufactured crisis—or at the very least, one conveniently exploited?

If the past is prologue, then it’s worth remembering how easily fear becomes a tool for political engineering. In the shadow of blackout and uncertainty, governments can impose new surveillance measures, emergency powers, or resource rationing—all under the noble guise of “keeping us safe.”

And let’s not ignore the transatlantic tension humming in the background. While Washington’s self-serving maneuvers go on, Brussels may be looking to reassert its own agenda, even if it means creating chaos to justify unity. In such a climate, events like this blackout are more than power failures—they’re stagecraft.

Citizens of Europe deserve transparency, not theater. They need accountability, not manipulation. And most of all, they must resist being conditioned into submission by the very institutions that claim to protect them.

Official sources, though, have a more mitigated version. Authorities cited a “massive technical failure” in the regional grid, but amid the cascading consequences, a more unsettling narrative is emerging—one that raises questions about political timing, institutional preparedness, and the weaponization of fear.

According to Red Eléctrica de España (REE), Spain’s national grid operator,

“an unanticipated systems overload in the Iberian grid architecture led to a cascading failure across several nodes, affecting key substations.” The company added that “investigations are ongoing” and that “external interference has not been confirmed.”

Meanwhile, Portugal’s Secretary of State for Energy, Ana Paula Mendes, offered reassurances in a televised statement on RTP News:

“There is no evidence of sabotage at this stage, but we remain open to all investigative paths. What matters now is restoring full functionality and identifying vulnerabilities.”

Yet the outage didn’t happen in a vacuum. For weeks beforehand, multiple EU-aligned agencies, think tanks, and public information channels had been issuing increasingly urgent preparedness advisories, warning Europeans to stock food, water, batteries, radios, and medical supplies in anticipation of “potential systemic disruptions.”

This has led some to wonder whether citizens were being warned—or conditioned.

Speaking to El País, Marcos Albalá, a teacher in Seville, said:

“We were told to prepare for a disruption. Then, right on cue, everything goes black. It felt like more than a coincidence—it felt like a message.”

Dr. Helena Krüger, a crisis policy analyst at the Berlin-based think tank EuropaVeritas, told Der Spiegel:

“This kind of anticipatory communication often serves two purposes: preparedness and narrative control. It reduces panic by implying foresight, but it also limits public criticism by implying inevitability.”

The EU’s Crisis Resilience Commission issued a statement the day after the outage, urging calm while reiterating vague warnings:

“Europeans should remain vigilant. Energy disruptions are increasingly likely in a world of hybrid threats and adversarial state actors.”

The language—deliberately ambiguous—has led critics to question whether the blackout is now being folded into a wider narrative of blame. Though no state has been officially accused, EU security commentators have already floated the idea of “cyber interference” linked to Russian interests, echoing past episodes in which Russia was accused of testing the West’s infrastructure resilience.

Miguel Tomás, a political analyst writing for Público, noted:

“In the past year, any unexplained disruption has become another brushstroke in the EU’s campaign to maintain public support for its military and financial commitments in Ukraine. It’s a dangerous formula: use fear to sustain fatigue.”

This theory finds fuel in a broader geopolitical context. As U.S. public support for the war in Ukraine wanes and pressure mounts in Washington to shift focus, the EU appears increasingly intent on doubling down—through rhetoric, policy, and now, perhaps, manufactured urgency.

Not everyone buys into the suggestion of a staged crisis—but skepticism is growing. A Lisbon resident, interviewed on TSF Radio Noticias, put it bluntly:

“It may not have been fake. But someone will use it.”

Ultimately, whether the Iberian blackout was a genuine technical failure or a politically useful crisis, the result is the same: fear takes root, trust erodes, and institutions consolidate more power—always, of course, in the name of protection.

Europeans would do well to keep their lights on—figuratively—because in the shadows of crisis, truth can become the first casualty.