The counselor for Environment and Climate Change, Nicolás Vázquez, has accused the BNG deputy Luís Bará of trying to "confuse" with the Altri project and has reiterated that the Green Infrastructure Strategy "is a planning instrument" and does not "delimit".
During an interpellation in plenary this Wednesday, the nationalist parliamentarian again held the Xunta responsible for altering the land planning law through the accompanying law to the budgets in order to circumvent the judgment of the High Court of Justice of Galicia (TSXG), which requires restoring the protection of the area where the installation of Altri was planned in the Serra do Careón, in the district of A Ulloa.
Bará has denounced that the Galician Government "puts in a kind of environmental industry counselor to hit the accelerator on all these extractive, mining, wind, chipboard, including the one of Altri. That is the reality, they put the fox to take care of the henhouse," in reference to the new holder of Environment, who previously occupied the Secretaría Xeral de Industria.
The deputy of the Bloc has also warned that they will do "everything that is within their power" to stop what he considers "perpetrate this authentic outrage" which, in his view, "has all the characteristics of an act of organized crime".
Vázquez has replied that "it is the first time that having experience is something bad. I never gave any argument to make that consideration about me," thus rejecting Bará's comparison of putting "the fox caring for the henhouse".
Debate about the Green Strategy and green infrastructure
Along these lines, the counselor has defended that in his previous stage he carried out "a technical and rigorous job" and has called some of the nationalist deputy's assertions "confusing". "Either you are confused or you want to confuse," he reproached from the podium.
Vázquez has detailed that green infrastructure corresponds to the "territorial network of natural and semi-natural spaces," in addition to other elements that favor the "conservation of biodiversity." For its part, the Green Strategy is "a planning instrument that sets the criteria, methodologies and necessary actions to identify and conserve that network."
"That is to say, the Estratexia is like the roadmap, green infrastructure is the demarcation", the councillor has underlined, insisting that the Estratexia sets "criteria and methodologies, not a demarcation". After admitting that the state regulation turns out to be "confusing", he has specified that the inclusion of an area in green infrastructure "is not going to mean that, automatically, no project can be developed in this field".
Change in the planning law and pending documentation
In his reply, Bará asked the regional official "why they want to change" the land-use planning law and he denounced that the Altri project in A Ulloa "is on standby to activate it when it corresponds".
The BNG deputy also reminded Nicolás Vázquez that the nationalist group continues to wait for "dozens of documents" that have already been requested, including the file of the memorandum with Altri and the file of the modification of the Estratexia de Infraestrutura Verde.
"If it had no legal validity, why did they change it? Right there, on Altri’s land", Bará insisted, who has again asked "what technician reported that" when the specialists from the Universidade "said that those lands had to be protected".
The Xunta claims confusion in the state regulation
Lastly, Nicolás Vázquez has maintained that the Galician Executive is opting to reform the law because "the state regulation" causes confusion and makes it so that "the Green Estratexia gets mixed up with Green Infrastructure".
"The Estratexia’s job is to set the criteria and the methodology and what green infrastructure does is delimit", he has reiterated, before emphasizing that "neither the inclusion of a space of green infrastructure implies a general prohibition on developing projects nor does the ruling establish that prohibition".
In conclusion, the new Environment councillor has urged the Bloque to stop "stirring up a project that is archived".