Portugal’s Environment Minister announced today that construction of the Algarve’s new desalination plant “will go ahead,” following a decision by the Loulé Administrative and Fiscal Court to reject a months-long injunction filed by environmental associations seeking to halt the project.
“There was an injunction filed [in July] because they felt the public consultation period was too short. The Portuguese Environment Agency (APA), with support from Águas do Algarve, responded, and the court ruled in favour of the APA,” Maria da Graça Carvalho told the Lusa news agency.
The injunction had been submitted last July by associations linked to the Plataforma Água Sustentável (PAS), which challenged both the duration and the conditions of the public consultation for the Environmental Conformity Report of the Execution Project (RECAPE). The groups alleged “a lack of transparency and insufficient time to review the documentation,” arguing that the process violated “citizens’ right to participation.”
In response to the action, the Loulé Administrative Court had initially suspended the ongoing consultation period, a decision that the APA subsequently contested.
According to the judicial ruling — seen by Lusa and signed by Judge Diogo Pereira Santos — the injunction was dismissed “for lack of instrumentality.”
Speaking after the decision, the Minister for Environment and Energy said it allows the project to “stay on schedule,” describing it as a key measure to strengthen the region’s water resilience.
Carvalho reaffirmed that construction will proceed within the planned timeframe: “The public consultation will reopen, I believe for two or three days. Then there will be a final decision based on that process, and immediately afterwards, construction can begin.”
She went on to praise the agencies involved: “Congratulations to the APA and Águas do Algarve for their well-prepared response to the injunction,” the minister concluded.
The desalination plant, located in the municipality of Albufeira, forms part of the Algarve Regional Water Efficiency Plan and represents an investment of more than €100 million, financed through the Recovery and Resilience Plan (PRR).
Once operational, the facility will have an initial production capacity of 16 million cubic metres of water per year, expandable to 24 million, and is expected to be completed by the end of 2026.
