The Public Consultation of the Recovery and Resilience Plan (PRR) took place "on a little-known portal, with very poor functioning" and the rules of consultation with civil society "changed during the course of the consultation", accused the Sustainable Water Platform (PAS) .
already after having given your input during the public discussion, the group of associations and movements for the defense of the environment went public alleging that there has been “strong pressure from national and regional entities to convince them that there was a wide consultation of citizens for the preparation of the Regional Plan of Water Efficiency of the Algarve (PREHA), or for the PRR».
However, the platform considers that this did not happen in this case or in PREHA.
The PRR, they say, «was drawn up and presented in Brussels» and what was made known to the Portuguese, and «only recently», was «a summary».
The associations point out that only one day after the end of the public consultation, which ended on March 1, the Government promoted a webinar on the water resources aspect.
“Only in that session were made public the amounts that each of these works will cost, since the PRR is silent. And it was stated that the water price will be increased, as a result of them», recalls PAS.
This announced increase in water in the Algarve region aims, according to the Minister of Environment, to guarantee the maintenance of two solutions recommended in the PRR to increase water efficiency in the Algarve, the connection to Pomarão and a desalination plant – which are seen by the platform as the wrong options.
In the case of PREHA, only “entities linked to the economic sector and not from all branches participated – only representatives of irrigated agriculture and the golf industry”.
“There was wider civil society participation in the elaboration of the Inter-municipal Plan for Adaptation to Climate Change in the Algarve (PIAAC), but this plan was largely ignored in all the official documents that followed”, says PAS.
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