José Amarelinho, the socialist president of Aljezur council in the western Algarve and vice president of the Association of the Algarve’s Municipalities (AMAL), has been interviewed by Luísa Oliveira for Visão on the red hot topic of oil exploration in the Algarve’s oceans and onshore.
Amarelinho says the region’s mayors are united in their opposition to government plans to turn the region into an oil and gas producing economy and says he and his mayoral colleagues will not stop until the concession contracts have been torn up.
“The fact is that the previous government signed contracts, right at the end of its legislature, contracts for two land exploration areas - both without public tender. We were caught by surprise and had to study the subject in depth. Soon we realised that it was not just a problem for Tavira and for Aljezur, but for 14 of the 16 Algarvian municipalities.”
“We began to exchange views with those who had done the research, such as the Algarve Free of Oil Platform (PALP) and the Association of Surf and the Algarve Maritime Activities (ASMAA), to understand the dynamics of the problem. We soon reached the conclusion that we had been handed a poisoned chalice.”
“We realise that most people do not want an industrial experiment in the Algarve, on land or at sea, as this is a region that has the tourism economy as its foundation. In some places, as in the case of Aljezur, we are focused on nature tourism, where there a network of extremely valuable countryside which has enabled us to start to break the seasonality problem. We now are facing an outdated and obsolete energy model, in defiance of what we have been advocating for years.”
Amarelinho wants sustainable development in his and the other Algarve municipalities, “When the world strives to change from fossil fuels to a greener economy of low-carbon and renewable energy, we are faced with this (oil and gas exploration) without being consulted, without any studies, without consulting the population.”
As for the concession contracts, Amarelinho says these are an open door to extraction rather than the process stopping after geological exploration which the government says is all that the contracts are about.
The mayor says the government is lying and that “exploration is the first step for the development and extraction of oil and gas.”
Amarelinho is clear that Portugal’s signature at the UN climate conference in Paris means the country should be looking at renewable energy to reduce CO2 emissions but he stops short of calling Prime Minister António Costa a hypocrite, adding that the PM has the power “to end what has been done badly,” and just needs to develop the political will.
In this respect it is good that the Secretary of State for Energy is aware of the position affecting the Algarve and that he is committed to examining the onshore concession contracts from a legal point of view.
As for the royalty income, “any financial results that may accrue to the State does not justify the environmental damage, the breakdown of social peace and the barriers that this throws up for the development of the Algarve’s main economic engine, tourism.
Amarelinho is in the ruling Socialist Party and says that, “we Socialists, who are government, have a moral obligation to reverse these contracts.”
