One of the Algarve’s anti-oil groups, MALP, has published the content of a letter received from the Prime Minister, António Costa, in response to the demands that the Minister for the Environment and the President of the Portuguese Environment Agency both should resign.
The suggestion that employment should be sought elsewhere for these two pro-oil protagonists came after the Galp-ENI Aljezur test well was allowed to circumvent the neccessitity of providing an Environmental Impact Assessment.
MALP says it is perplexed by the social and environmental insensitivity of the Prime Minister who “continues to defend oil exploration off the coast of Aljezur and who continues to insist on the fallacious argument that Portugal has to know what reserves are out there while making out that any of the multinationals finding oil in Portuguese territory would make it available as a charitable endeavour, serving the Algarve region and the country.”
MALP argues that the energy companies holding contracts know the PM's argument to be nonsense as the agreement signed with the State gives companies both exploration and extraction rights.
The Prime Minister "also has the nerve to write in his response, seeking to deceive the unsuspecting, that, decarbonisation does not imply zero oil" Minister thus fuelling the dream of reconciling the fulfillment of the Paris Agreement on combating climate change with the delivery of the coastal territory of the Costa Vicentina to oil companies."
MALP recommends to the Prime Minister and to the Environment Minister, João Matos Fernandes, they "look at the conduct of the former French Minister of Ecological Transition, Nicolas Hulot, who in an act of great dignity, resigned as his government is trapped by the same highly damaging contradiction."
The anti-oil group “appeals to all citizens to take part in the World Climate March in Portugal on the 8th of September to give a resounding message to the António Costa government which is defending the interests of oil multinationals, GALP and ENI, to the detriment of the public interest while disrespecting democracy, local authorities, associations for the protection of the environment and Portugal’s citizens.”
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