MEP aims to pull plug on Aznar’s l22bn reservoir scheme

Date: 30/04/03

By Karen Carstens

THE European Commission is being urged to keep its financial faucet firmly shut on a hydrological plan which Spain wants the EU to co-fund.

Dutch Green MEP Alexander de Roo, who is hosting a day-long event on the issue at the Parliament on Tuesday (6 May), predicts an environmental and social catastrophe if the €22 billion National Hydrological Project (NHP) gets the green light from Brussels.

It would involve the construction of some 120 dams to divert billions of gallons of water from the Ebro, the nation's second longest river, from the northeast to the arid Mediterranean coast.

However, opponents of the NHP say the dams threaten to uproot thousands of people who farm rice, mussels and fish along the Ebro.

At least five towns would be submerged by the dams' reservoirs.

They would also destroy the productive Ebro delta, a national park protected by an international treaty and one of Europe's most crucial remaining wetlands for birds.

Spain's Prime Minister José María Aznar and his conservative Popular Party support the scheme. Aznar has asked the Commission to pay more than €1 billion annually over eight years to help bankroll the project, de Roo said.

The MEP predicted that the NHP could be shelved if the ruling Popular Party does badly in local elections on 25 May and in the 2004 general election.

Dutch Green MEP Alexander de Roo, is to host a day-long event at the European Parliament on 6 May 2003 on the issue of a hydrological plan which Spain wants the European Union to co-fund. Mr de Roo predicts an environmental and social catastrophe if the EUR 22 billion National Hydrological Project (NHP) gets the green light from Brussels. It would involve the construction of some 120 dams to divert billions of gallons of water from the Ebro, the nation's second longest river, from the northeast to the arid Mediterranean coast.