The Parliament of the Canary Islands hosted this Thursday the parliamentary Commission for Ecological Transition and Energy in which the socialist deputy, Marcos Bergaz, asked the Minister of Ecological Transition and Energy, Mariano Zapata (PP), about the "slip-up" of the controversial Renewable Acceleration Zone (ZAR) in Lanzarote and La Graciosa.
A ZAR that, "presented with great fanfare by the Canary Islands Government and the Lanzarote Council, is now rejected by the island Institution, which announced that its processing should be restarted after detecting errors in the published maps and reserving a total of 3,163 hectares, the equivalent of 4,200 football fields, 3.75% of the island's territory for the implementation of wind farms and photovoltaic plants," said Marcos Bergaz.
A proposal contemplated in the Protocol signed by the councilor, Mariano Zapata, and the president of the Cabildo of Lanzarote, Oswaldo Betancort, and published on August 20 in the Official Gazette of the Canary Islands, which also stated that in order to achieve the 2030 decarbonization objectives, an estimated actual occupation area of 0.23% of the island's surface area was required.
"After a reasonable amount of time without hearing a detailed explanation from your Government, Councilor, I ask you about what happened, because we are obviously in favor of renewables, but with criteria and without compromising the unique, different, and extraordinary landscape of Lanzarote," Bergaz stated.
"Therefore," he continued, "it is advisable to shed light on what happened, to determine whether we are facing a simple clerical error, a change of criteria, or whether they have backed down in view of the adverse reactions that described the proposal as nonsense. As well as informing about the procedure for its correction, which should cover both the reserved area and reaching a consensus with the municipalities, not only with the Cabildo."
In this regard, Bergaz reminded the councilor that the Cabildo has blamed the Canary Islands Government for the errors, implying that a protocol with errors had been published in the Official Gazette of the Canary Islands and that the area that the Renewable Energy Acceleration Zone would actually have on the Island would be one percent, in addition to assuring that the procedure would be restarted.
The Lanzarote Member of Parliament demanded joint and public explanations from the two administrations that signed the Protocol, the Canary Islands Government and the Cabildo, "because the importance of the matter justifies it, even more so when it rains on wet ground, because first there was the attempt to place new wind farms and photovoltaic plants via the exceptional route of section 6 bis, without agreement with the Cabildo and municipalities, and now this slip-up with the renewable energy acceleration zone."
For his part, Councilor Mariano Zapata defended the rigor of the proposal and insisted that the Renewable Acceleration Zone of Lanzarote includes more than 3,100 hectares. Regarding the controversy raised with the Cabildo, he indicated that "some material errors were detected, four to be specific, in four plans that only affected the graphic representation, never the data. The surface data was and remains correct," before concluding that, "the ZAR of Lanzarote is defined and agreed upon. The protocol is signed."
In his reply, the socialist Marcos Bergaz highlighted that in Lanzarote "a real mess has been made," and pointed out the apparent contradictions between what the Government has stated and what the Cabildo has explained regarding the island's surface area included in the ZAR. "You have the opportunity to clarify this, because your silence or failure to answer increases doubts, mistrust, and fear," he concluded.