The Cabildo of Lanzarote has announced several appeals to try to stop the explorations, after the Ministry of Industry granted the last authorization for the start of the surveys. First, the institution will present an appeal to the Secretary of State for Energy and will also go to the "Spanish and European" courts to appeal the authorization, where the environmental impact statement will also be "attacked". In addition, an incident of nullity of the Supreme Court's ruling will be filed.
The Cabildo has also activated "part of the roadmap" planned with actions "of maximum forcefulness", which will be announced in September. The president, Pedro San Ginés, "particularly" believes that the Cabildo should not call more demonstrations.
San Ginés considers that this decision to authorize oil exploration has been made "very much in the style of the great provocateur that the Canarian minister José Manuel Soria has become, acting as judge and party of the different appeals" filed against the surveys. For San Ginés, this decision of the Ministry represents the "last and definitive outrage to the Canarian population by the perfect binomial, which is formed by Repsol and the Government of Mr. Rajoy".
"Authorizing the explorations 50 kilometers from our coasts is a decision deliberately promoted by the Minister of Industry, Soria, to defend the exclusive interests of a multinational, against the evident, manifest and overwhelming will of the Canarian people. In Democracy this new outrage cannot be tolerated, it will not go unanswered, because we have been fighting against this threat and this aggression for 13 years, trying to be allowed to live in peace and without risk", San Ginés said.
"We will use all the resources at our disposal"
The president said that "if Repsol wants to drill off our coasts, it will have to assume a very high cost, in every sense." "If we can, we will not allow it. We are a peaceful and dialoguing people, but as I have already announced we are going to use all the resources at our disposal to prevent it, all those that are within the Law, without ruling out any", San Ginés warned.
And the Cabildo has rejected this authorization published this Wednesday in the Official State Gazette (BOE) from "every point of view, the procedural and the technical". "It reflects the culmination of an administrative process marked by obscurantism, lack of information, permanent lies and the unacceptable imposition. Democracy in the Canary Islands has been hijacked by the PP and Repsol", said the president.
San Ginés also assured that this authorization "does not respond" to "any" of the allegations presented, since it does not refer to the impacts on tourism or on water desalination, "as neither did the environmental impact statement". "The minister's statements that these surveys have nothing to do with the Canary Islands because they are done in Spanish waters can only receive the firm and unanimous condemnation of the Canarian society and its institutions", he defended.
"They despise the interests of Lanzarote"
In addition, he emphasized two conditions of the authorization. One of them, the civil liability insurance that Repsol must provide of 40 million euros to face "eventual damages to people or goods" and the financial guarantee of 20 million euros to cover its "environmental responsibilities". "An oil company was sentenced by the US Government to 8,000 million euros for damages caused in an accident in deep waters, similar to those that are wanted to be prospected in the Canary Islands. This insurance would not cover even remotely what citizens and the tourism industry would have to pay", San Ginés said.
The other condition is the obligation to place a system of earthquake control, since if a seism of 4.5 degrees is detected less than 75 kilometers away, the operations would have to stop. "We remind Repsol and the Ministry that they are frequent in the environment of 50 km and 4.5 degrees", the president insisted.
On the other hand, the councilor José Antonio Gutiérrez, who accompanied San Ginés in this press conference, assured that with this authorization has materialized "the most absolute contempt they feel for Democracy and the Canarian citizenship". "With this act, the PP and Soria are clearly in the defense of the interests of the oil company Repsol, obviating, forgetting, despising the interests of Lanzarote", he said, while rejecting "absolutely" the authorization to the explorations.
