The Ministers of the Environment and Foreign Affairs have been called to parliament to explain the rigged report on Spain’s ancient Almaraz nuclear power station - a report that concluded that there was no problem at all with the building of additional facilities for storing nuclear waste next to the Tagus river, even though it then flows through Portugal as the 'Tejo'.
The demand for an urgent hearing came from the Left Bloc, which said today that the government's decision, expressed in the Portuguese Environment Agency report, was seriously unacceptable.
MPs voted for this parliamentary hearing to be held at which the two ministers can attempt to explain how Portugal went from lodging a complaint with Brussels over Spain’s advanced plans for Almaraz, to submitting yesterday's feeble report stating that Portugal has no problem at all with the construction of a nuclear waste dump in a project that will allow Almaraz to continue operating way beyond its planned decommissioning date.
Portugal complained to the European Commission about Spain, but under direct pressure from Jean-Claude Juncker, the inebriate president of the European Commission, dropped the complaint and agreed to commission a cross-border environmental impact study.
Juncker did not want to have any visible squabbling between Portugal and Spain and used unknown threats to make Portugal drop the matter. This matter now may blow up in Juncker's face.
The carefully selected working group, which excluded any environmental NGO representation, has just reported that the project is "safe and adequate" and added that it had consulted widely with environmental NGO’s - a claim denied by environmental NGOs.
"The Almaraz nuclear power plant in the Spanish state is the nearest nuclear power plant in Portugal, located just a hundred kilometres from the border, with two nuclear reactors dated 1981 and 1983, the oldest in the Spain, which raises concerns aggravated by successive operational incidents," states the Left Bloc.
The Portuguese Environment Agency presented the opinion of the technical working group which concluded that the new fuel dump is an "adequate solution" that reaches minimum international safety standards.
The report failed to look at the impact on Portugal of a leak or other more serious incident at Almaraz, the whole basis of the original complaint to Brussels.
This politically driven climb down makes the Portuguese government look weak, compliant and lacking in the minimum effort necessary to ensure its citizens are protected from a nuclear leak or other incident in neighbouring Spain. The ministers can expect a rough ride from MPs.
