Parliament votes to request closure of Spain’s Almaraz nuclear plant

By TPN/Lusa, in News · 22-05-2017 06:29:00 · 0 Comments

The Portuguese parliament has unanimously approved a motion put up by the Green party (PEV) for the Portuguese government to request the Spanish government at the next Iberian Summit to close the Almaraz Nuclear Plant.

The motion renounces the continued operation of the plant after 2020 and asks the government to take a “resolute position,” for the facility, located 100 kilometres form the Portuguese border, to be closed.

The PEV noted that Portugal had given up on a complaint about the plant filed with the European Commission after it signed an agreement with Spain to reassess the cross-border impacts of the temporary nuclear waste storage facility planned to be built in Almaraz.

In February Spain and Portugal agreed to settle the dispute with the help of European Union mediators. That was after Portugal lodged a formal complaint at Spain's having failed to carry out a full environmental impact study, including the cross-border implications of the project, before advancing with the plan.

The Almaraz plant has been in operation since the early 1980s. It is located on the River Tagus, which flows from Spain into Portugal.

Environmentalists have warned that the plan to build the landfill site almost certainly indicates that Spain intends to extend the life of the Almaraz power plant beyond the current horizon, of 2020, and have called on the Portuguese government to take a firmer position on the matter.

The Spanish government has said that no final decision on extending the life of the Almaraz plant has yet been made.