The Third Chamber of the Supreme Court has rejected the seven appeals filed against the oil explorations off Lanzarote and Fuerteventura and has thus endorsed the central government's decree authorizing these surveys in March 2012.
The decision has already been officially confirmed to La Voz by the Court, although the sentence is still pending drafting. For the moment, what has already been made public is the ruling of the magistrates' vote. And according to what they have advanced from the Supreme Court to La Voz, there has been no unanimity among the judges.
In fact, it is expected that when drafting the sentence - which will happen in the next few days - a dissenting opinion will be issued by "at least" one of the magistrates.
The appeals that the Supreme Court has rejected had been filed by the councils of Lanzarote and Fuerteventura, the Government of the Canary Islands, Ecologistas en Acción-Ben Magec, the César Manrique Foundation, WWF and Izquierda Unida.
Pending battle
After this decision of the Supreme Court, which will be formally notified in the coming days, the appeals that were announced against the approval of the Environmental Impact Statement of these surveys, which was announced on May 29, on the eve of Canary Islands Day, are still pending.
In any case, this would not be enough to stop the start of the explorations, which are only pending the last administrative procedure by the central government to be able to begin.