Third Vice-President of the Government and Minister of Ecological Transition and Demographic Challenge, Teresa Ribera said in the House of Representatives this Wednesday that offshore wind power generation will “affect only 0.46% of the coastline, 37% less than initial calculations.” At the request of the Plural and Mixed parliamentary groups, Ribera appeared in the Cabinet to report on approval. Marine Area Management Plans (POEM), an important step for its future implementation parks offshore windoh there are rebels Cantabrian fishermen, especially the Asturians and Galicians. And every time Ribera defends her rule on this issue, sparks fly and the mood of the Asturias fishing industry is inflamed, which has become extremely sensitive to the possibility of developing three wind farms in the Principality’s coastal waters.
Adolfo García Méndez, President of the Federation of Fishermen’s Guilds of Asturias, phoned. “misrepresentation” and “liar” In his parliamentary speech, he added to the Minister, who assured that the request to park the development of offshore wind energy “is not a logical position” and that “many meetings have been held with all actors and sectors of the process, particularly the fisheries sector,” as well as “providing all possible information and providing no A double public consultation took place, which did not shy away from the effort”.
García Méndez, contrary to the Minister’s assertions, the fishermen They do not veto the development of offshore wind energy, but instead propose to address the issue in a “prudent, responsible and respectful manner”. For the rights of fishermen and marine biodiversity”. He also identifies as “false” the contribution of reports and documents in the process prior to the approval of the POEM: “It is true that there are meetings, telematics. Another useful thing in La Coruña, where promises were then systematically broken down? However, it is incorrect that socioeconomic studies are currently being conducted showing the supposed compatibility of fishing and wind farms in areas set aside for this activity. The study requested by the fishermen on the impact of wind energy on marine biodiversity was also not conducted. The minister may be hearing us, but he is not listening to us.”
Such is the fishermen’s distrust of the Administration regarding the development of wind farms in the Cantabrian Sea, where the Fisheries and Marine Ecosystems Defense Platform represents Asturia at large. contentious-administrative appeal Supreme Court To break down and force POEMs State to restart the drillthrough of this document In the words of García Méndez, a guide to the use of marine areas “from scratch and with due attention to the problem of fishing”. Fishermen resort to the application of the “precautionary principle”, which is one of the pillars of Community fisheries policy. This principle reaffirms that where a private or public decision, for which there is no full scientific consensus, causes adverse effects or serious harm to people or the environment, it will be at the expense of the person making the discovery of the evidence. decision. In other words, for the offshore wind industry to develop, its safety in terms of fishing must first be proven.