No peace between Azata del Sol and Greenpeace

AZATA DEL SOL’S lawyers are scrutinising a Greenpeace report that criticises the company.

The developers are responsible for El Algarrobico, a seafront hotel built on protected land in Carboneras inside the Cabo de Gata-Nijar national park.

According to Greenpeace, Azata– a conglomerate of around 20 firms – carried out illegal operations that infringed environmental and development regulations on at least eight other occasions.

Greenpeace went on to say that in 1998, five years before construction started, the Environment Ministry in Madrid warned Azata that El Algarrobico fell foul of the Coastal Law.

Nevertheless Azata went ahead with the 400-room, 21-storey hotel, Greenpeace said. Work was halted by an Almeria court in 2006 when the project was more than 90 per cent complete and the company is now asking for almost €70 million in compensation.

The Greenpeace report is “riddled with untruths,” Azata claimed.

“Faced with this we have no choice but to ask our legal advisers to determine what steps to take to correct these defamations,” said Azata’s assistant managing director Jose Rodriguez.

“Azata has never been involved in any of the cases mentioned by Greenpeace,” he added.

Rodriguez also accused Greenpeace of publishing the report with the sole intention of conditioning the Supreme Court’s definitive ruling on whether the El Algarrobico land is classified for development.

This will arrive later this month but is unlikely to satisfy Greenpeace. “Independently of the Supreme Court’s resolution, the hotel is illegal because it breaches the Coastal Law. As in other parts of the country, it is the Administration’s duty to demolish the hotel immediately,” declared Pilar Marcos, who is responsible for Greenpeace’s Coastal campaign.