Opposition grows to oil exploration plans in Mediterranean

IDYLLIC: Oil platforms would threaten this Javea beach

Spokesmen for all political parties – the PSPV socialists, Xabia Democratica, the Partido Popular, Ciudadanos por Javea and Compromis –  recently attended a meeting called by the mayor, Jose Chulvi. 

They are presenting a united front to convey their worries to the central government.

A draft statement has now been prepared and is expected to be approved at an extraordinary council meeting tomorrow, Thursday.

This will set out the worries of the local tourist and fishing industries which are anxious to learn what the oil prospecting company Cairn Energy has in store for them. 

Oil prospecting would adversely affect fish catches, seriously affecting a sector that is important to the area’s economy and its catering sector. This in turn would put even more people out of work.

Members of the Marina Alta’s hotel and tourism association Aehtma are equally uneasy about the prospecting proposals. Its committee decided to demand that the Consell, the regional government’s Cabinet, rejects “this threat to our way of life and our legacy to coming generations.” 

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Comments


    • John Gardner

      20 February 2014 • 10:39

      Oil prospecting is about profits. Money. Whatever is destroyed in the quest for this money is, in the mindset of those who seek it, irrelevant. Do we need the oil? No. The technology to advance beyond fossil fuels has been with us since the early 1930s. American car manufacturers and various oil interests bought it and buried it because their commitment to fossil fuel was so big.
      Post WW2 prosperity was partly built on cheap, available fuel. The oil crisis of 1973 changed this but still governments dragged their heals. They could have and should have insisted that the buried technology was developed for commercial application. Today, we have a very expensive (why?) electricity supply in Spain and a country on an economic knife-edge. This could be seen as a golden opportunity to get new technology to the market as soon as possible to allow economic development to progress. Cut the shackles of fossil fuels and move on.
      However, unless a government forces it on them oil companies and car manufacturers will not release this technology until they have screwed the last cent out of fossil fuels – and only they will decide when that is. We are, in effect, being held to ransom but no American government is going to put an end to it so it is left to Europe to lead the way.
      Spain could be the vanguard by forcing the issue. Its judiciary is seeking arrest warrants for alleged crimes against humanity in other parts of the world. It could be argued that the actions of oil companies are exactly that. So why not issue an appropriate international warrant and force details of this technology into the pubic arena, where it belongs? For the benefit of all mankind.
      And in the meantime keep the money-grubbers out of the Med!

    • Ciu Uno

      02 March 2014 • 03:04

      As soon as the “money” is found (and they won’t be stopped looking for it), you watch the Ayuntamiento give their support. They aren’t bothered about hiding their corruption and sole interest in €uros – they are only interested in what ultimately goes directly into *their* pockets, regardless of the environment or the ciudanos.

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