Portugal’s request for an urgent meeting with Spain over plans to extend the operating life of an old and possibly unsafe nuclear power station near the border is being ignored.
Portugal's Environment Minister João Pedro Matos Fernandes said in September that Spain’s nuclear security authority had approved plans for a nuclear waste landfill site at its Almaraz nuclear power station just 100 kilometres from the Portuguese border.
Spain’s parliament agreed that the plant should be shut down, mainly due to doubts over the safety of its ancient cooling system and the use of dodgy spare parts during maintenance and repairs but then plans were submitted to extend the site's life to 2040 as a fuel dump.
Almaraz is on the Tejo river which flows through both countries and the worry is that any nuclear incident soon would spread to Portugal.
Spain refuses to discuss Portugal’s valid concerns about Almaraz and minister Fernandes has threatened to appeal to Brussels if no answers are forthcoming.
"If we do not have an answer, we will continue to insist on this matter and request the intervention of the European Union," said the Environment Minister in Portugal's parliament.
Fernandes said that there already has been a meeting with his Spanish counterpart to "guarantee the rights" of Portugal to participate in the environmental impact assessment of the nuclear dump. However, Spain’s answer was evasive and unclear, so Fernandes again wrote "to request more data" two weeks ago but has heard nothing back.
"If we do not get an answer, we again will insist on this matter with the Spanish Government and request the intervention of the European Union," the minister stressed during the debate on Portugal’s draft State Budget.
João Pedro Matos Fernandes can invoke EU directives and cite the Espoo Convention which safeguards transboundary impacts. He wants to remind Madrid that Portugal must be heard and must participate in the decision in terms of environmental impact assessment but if Spain doesn't reply to polite questions, Brussels will have to put some pressure on which inevitably will take years.
