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A plane at El Prat airport, near La Ricarda lagoon, an area protected by the Natura 2000 Network.MASSIMILIANO MINOCRI
The expansion of the Barcelona airport will have a full impact, according to the draft of the project presented this Friday by the airport manager Aena, on the protected natural area of La Ricarda. After a summer of intense debate that began with the agreement between the Government, the Generalitat and Aena to move forward with the expansion, the company controlled by the State (it has 51% of the capital) has submitted to the Airport Coordination Commission of Catalonia the Airport Regulation Document (DORA), in which it confirms the impact of the area included in the Natura 2000 Network, as advanced by eldiario.es. In this draft, it is written for the first time that the intention is to lengthen the track closest to the sea through the space occupied by the La Ricada lagoon. The mayor of El Prat, Lluís Mijoler,He has accused the Government of Pere Aragonès of lying, since he assured that the expansion would not have any environmental impact.
Both sources from Aena and the Catalan Government deny that what was officially presented this Friday, the same document that the Council of Ministers must approve before the end of the month, introduce any change regarding the positions agreed in the last bilateral commission that both administrations make up . In fact, the Generalitat assures that the document includes what was agreed upon in that meeting by introducing the following text: "This proposal is conditioned to have the necessary coverage that enables its implementation materialized in a new Master Plan, whose processing process is expected to be long in the future. its dependence on various Administrations and their competent Bodies, including the European Commission ”. The quotation mark refers to the need for the Generalitat's environmental endorsement,the Ministry of Ecological Transition and the Community Executive.
Despite this, the president of the Generalitat, Pere Aragonès, has indicated on Twitter his opposition to the document known today. "The DORA of Aena that has been made public today does not reflect the consensus established in the Government's yes: to ensure the investment without considering anything closed and to define the next steps with a broad agreement of all the administrations," he said, in addition to ask for a rectification. The Generalitat statement on August 2, when the agreement with the central government was reached, stated: "The new master plan will have to determine the specific actions to achieve this challenge, actions, but which will have to be limited to the dimensions of location that reduce to the minimum expression any affectation in environmental surroundings ”, without reference to the DORA.
The document presented by Aena foresees that the total investment for the expansion until 2030 will be 1,704 million euros. The delivery of the DORA is a preliminary procedure for the Council of Ministers to study it for approval, predictably on September 30, and its approval, in turn, after a prolonged negotiation process between Aena and administrations turned into a master plan. While DORA determines the current photograph of the Spanish airport network, the one foreseen for the future and the investments - and fees - necessary to achieve it, the master plan is a detailed description of the projects to be undertaken. In the case of El Prat airport, a source of controversy due to the frontal opposition of the municipalities governed by the commons and due to the discrepancies of the Catalan government,It is about expanding one of the runways to gain operating capacity and a new satellite terminal that, at the earliest, would be ready in 2029.
In addition, the Generalitat has agreed with the Government that Adif build two high-speed train stations with the Girona and Reus airports so that they can host flights and decongest El Prat, ensuring connections with the center of Barcelona in half an hour through the BIRD.
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The European Commission will ensure that the project's environmental impact is minimized. It is the first time that the intentions of the expansion have been introduced in an official document, after the pact between governments generated a significant controversy and an avalanche of criticism, precisely because an expansion had been agreed without knowing the details of it or its environmental impact. Given the criticism, the Generalitat argued that it had only been agreed to expand the airport and take advantage of the investment, but assured that the project would be carried out without environmental impact in the area. The vice president of the Government, Jordi Puigneró, came to assure that the airport resulting from the expansion would be "the greenest in Europe".
"The expansion of the airfield, and specifically of runway 07R / 25L and its associated taxiways to the East, maintaining the threshold for landings at the current location, would affect areas of the Natura 2000 Network," the document states.
The European Commission has already warned Spain that an extension should not "significantly affect" the Delta del Llobregat, which is protected by the European Natura 2000 network. The third vice president of the Government and minister for the Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge, Teresa Ribera recently admitted that the project "will not go ahead" if it does not comply with environmental guarantees.
A track with 500 meters more
The position of the Generalitat is that it can be negotiated including technical studies, which add the possibility that the extension of the runway, which Aena wants to gain 500 meters to meet the demands of larger aircraft, be adapted to what is necessary. They open the door to study all the possibilities, including those of gaining space wherever possible and even without affecting the natural areas that delimit the airport infrastructure both to the north and to the south.
From the beginning, the agreement was opposed by United We Can, the Barcelona City Council and the El Prat City Council. This Friday, the mayor of this town, Lluís Mijoler, has denounced that the Government lied when he assured that there would be no impact. "It will have a total impact and will destroy the La Ricarda lagoon," he said, in addition to highlighting that DORA does not specify details of the construction, such as the extension or duration, or the environmental compensation of the project. The mayor has called for mobilization and participation in the September 19 demonstration against the expansion of the airport. The Barcelona City Council has also rejected the project outright. The Deputy Mayor for Urban Planning, Janet Sanz,has warned that it is "an environmental attack on a very important metropolitan area" and has accused the parties to the agreement of acting with "lies, opacity and secrecy." "The Generalitat has been lying to us, because it said that this was going to be discussed later, but no," he has sentenced.