The minister of the Environment undertook this Friday, at the Assembly of the Republic, to appoint, as a matter of urgency, the Technical Commission for Monitoring the assessment of the environmental impact of prospecting, researching and extracting hydrocarbons in Portugal.
The government official responded to the Algarve socialist deputy Luís Graça, who, during yesterday's debate in Parliament, marked by the Ecologist Party Os Verdes (PEV) on the waiver of environmental impact assessment for the oil prospecting hole off Aljezur, separated the technical decision of the Portuguese Environment Agency (APA) of the political decision.
The deputy recalled that the law (37/2017), approved a year ago on the PS initiative, is "much better than the previous one", since it makes mandatory the environmental impact assessment in prospecting actions, which until then, with the PSD Government, it did not happen.
“When we changed the law, we changed with sincerity”, said Luís Graça.
"There is a technical decision that we may not like, and I personally do not like it, but it is technical", the Algarve deputy also stressed, recalling that the law in force provides for a Technical Monitoring Commission and urging the Government to appoint it, since it is essential to guarantee “transparency” to this process.
As a matter of fact, as soon as the APA's decision was known yesterday, the PS deputies elected by the Algarve delivered to Parliament a request addressed to the Ministry of Environment and Economy for this purpose.
In the document, the parliamentarians recall article 4 of the law that establishes the creation of the commission, describing that, among its missions, are «the monitoring of the execution of contracts relating to the prospecting, research or extraction of hydrocarbons, as well as the application of the regime of oil prospecting, research, development and production activities and issue recommendations, including in terms of transparency and availability of information to the public».
During the debate, Luís Graça addressed the PSD and, in particular, deputy Cristóvão Norte. «When the PSD Government granted 80% of the Algarve region to the company of businessman Sousa Cintra, to drill from Aljezur to Tavira, deputy Cristóvão Norte [PSD] was silent, was silent and said nothing», he accused, denouncing a lack authority to now "put themselves on their toes" on this matter.
Already before, PS deputy João Torres, in the same debate, had assured that security is safeguarded when carrying out an oil exploration well off Aljezur. "This is a research well, and if oil is found, the environmental impact assessment will be mandatory," he explained.
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