The Cabildo of Lanzarote has sent a statement to explain that the European Union has notified it that the complaints submitted by the Canary Islands administrations against oil exploration are "being evaluated in due time and form", "respecting the protocols established in community legislation".
In a letter addressed to the Cabildo of Lanzarote, the cabinet of institutional interrelations of the Environment Commission of the European Union has provided an update on the process in which these complaints are immersed. In this letter, according to the Cabildo, not only is the effective acceptance of the complaints confirmed, but also that the European authorities will analyze the legality of the oil project in the Canary Islands. Thus, they will determine the degree of compatibility or non-compliance with various current community directives.
In this way, the Cabildo wanted to make it clear "that the EU has not rejected these complaints, as had been assured in some media", where it is stated that Brussels did not appreciate that the surveys violated the law. The European Union has received hundreds of complaints on this matter, including those from the Government of the Canary Islands, the Cabildos of Lanzarote and Fuerteventura, political groups from the European parliamentary spectrum such as the Greens, international environmental defense organizations, as well as many other entities, associations and individuals from all over Europe.
In fact, the decision of the European Commission to disseminate the treatment of these complaints through the Official Journal of the European Union (C183/04, of 26.06.2012) was the result, as its own text indicates, of the "high number of complaints received".
The authorization, approved by the Council of Ministers on March 16 (547/2012), allows the company Repsol, the German RWE and the Australian oil company Woodside to initiate drilling and test drilling to exploit hydrocarbon deposits in an oceanic area of 616,000 hectares located between 9 and 60 kilometers from the beaches of Lanzarote and Fuerteventura. In addition to the European complaints in the field of community law, seven different organizations are already involved in the Supreme Court to appeal the Royal Decree approved in March through contentious-administrative appeals.
"We are aware that the process will be long, but that is why we are going to work every day with more strength, more initiatives, adding support throughout the world", said the president of the Cabildo, Pedro San Ginés.
