The flagship industrial project in Galicia in the medium term is a textile fiber manufacturing plant that the Portuguese multinational Altri wants to install in the municipality of Palas de Rei, in the province of Lugo. A project that the Xunta has declared of strategic interest, against which environmental entities have risen and which the opposition in Galicia, notably the BNG, is trying to compress politically, trying to torpedo its financing – in part – with public funds. But beyond the discord, what the figures say is that there is more noise than nothing in the opposition to the central office. Because The majority of allegations, more than 70%, are simply copies of the same form. And because only 5% of the total allegations come from the area where the factory would be located.
In March and for a month, the Xunta exposed to the public the company’s application for integrated environmental authorization and the declaration of public utility of its project. And BNG has since attempted to profit from the volume of allegations, totaling 24,041. But, as ABC has learned from sources close to the company, The vast majority of these resources are copies of a few models.
In total, 21,847, or more than 90%, correspond to three model forms, but which were presented by different people and entities. And one of these three models, which circulated on social networks – and which is limited to a page of several paragraphs – was presented 16,924 times. The company also identified that of the total allegations, only 293 do not follow any predefined template, i.e. they are original texts and not photocopies of forms provided. This means that 98.8% of the allegations are simple copy and paste.
This copy-pasting of forms is not the only thing undermining the BNG’s efforts to make Altri’s cause a political battle. There is another fact that deflates this discourse: only 10% of the total allegations, or 1,752, were presented by entities or residents of the region where the plant is planned to be installed or its most exposed areas. more immediate. Concretely, 880 of the allegations, or 5%, came from the Ulloa region. –which, in addition to Palas de Rei, includes the municipalities of Monterroso and Antas de Ulla–. In other words, only 11% of the population of the region where Altri wishes to install the factory spoke out against its installation. Another 872 allegations came from the adjacent region of Terras de Melide – the municipalities of Melide and Santiso. Most of the resources come from the regions of A Coruña, Santiago de Comostela, Vigo, Lugo and Orense and, to a lesser extent, from the areas of the Ría de Arousa, where the Ulla river flows, in the bed of which the plant would return, purified, the water used for its activity.
But this low percentage of allegations presented by the inhabitants of the areas concerned cannot be surprising if we look at the results of the last European elections, in June, when the Altri question was already hovering: the PP, in favor of the factory on condition that it complies with administrative and environmental requirements, Palas de Rei then won, with 65% of the votes, up more than ten points.
BNG and PSOE
The role of the two main opposition parties to the PP autonomous government in Galicia, the BNG and the PSOE, is very different. The nationalists are very belligerent towards the factory, even warning Pedro Sánchez’s government that it would withdraw its support if you finance it with public funds. The Galician PSOE, on the other hand, swerved, positioning itself against him, but with a small mouth. José Ramón Gómez Besteiro, leader of the Galician PSOE, has only dispelled this lukewarmness in recent weeks, declaring that the project “is not suitable” to receive state aid under the European Next Generation funds. The debate on public financing of the project, precisely, is one of the big questions to be resolved beyond the bureaucratic procedures of installing the factory. In any case, 850 million euros that the multinational plans for the factory, It only demands 25% from the central government, or 200 million. The Government is the one which has the Losses key to mobilize the European funds requested by the company.
The arguments
The bulk of the arguments in these allegations against the Altri plant, which BNG disparagingly refers to as “macrocellulose”, focuses on the considering that its discharges will “poison” the Ulla river and also in the “large quantities of water, energy and eucalyptus” that the factory will need to manufacture the textile fibers. In addition, they assure that this will “seriously” affect the cultural and natural heritage of the region.
The company specifies, however, that Palas will not produce paper pulp, but rather Lyocell textile fiber, 100% biodegradable; that he does not need more eucalyptus than is already produced in Galicia; that the water discharged will not alter the quality of the river; that gas emissions will be lower than European regulations, and that The factory will generate 500 direct jobs. Altri now has the obligation, according to the law, to “consider” these allegations in its project, that is to say to take into account those which it considers appropriate to request an environmental authorization. This would be the preliminary step for the final approval of the project, by the Council of Xunta, which could take place in the first third of 2025 if Altri meets the requirements.
