The board of directors of the port of Valencia has approved this Friday morning the northern expansion of the port of Valencia with only two votes against. They have been those of the mayor of Valencia, Joan Ribó, and that of Iván Castañón, Compromís spokesman on the Board of Directors, as confirmed at a press conference by the president of the Port Authority of Valencia, Aurelio Martínez.
After the extraordinary council, the mayor has explained that he has voted against it due to the “legal uncertainty that means that the Port Authority is judge and party in terms of the Environmental Impact Statement (DIA)” and predicts that it is easy for this to have consequences at the legal level, as has happened with the ZAL: “I think it is a very clear experience that can place us in a very important situation”, he pointed out.
Ribó explained that the report issued this week acknowledges that the DIA of 2007 included recommendations of which “nothing has been done” and has also pointed to mobility, due to the presumable truck traffic that it will entail in the city. “If this is not studied in a very clear way, as long as this is not clear, we are clear that this expansion does not benefit the city, but harms it”, he has maintained.
For his part, Aurelio Martínez has downplayed the lack of unanimity in the project and has assured, to questions from the media, that this “does not diminish its legitimacy. In a democracy, when you vote, you win by majority and period “Although I think it is interesting that we have different points of view, and that forces us to come closer, but what you cannot do is stop because there is no unanimity. In politics, if that were done, no law would be approved”, he defended.
Likewise, Martínez has defended that the project is “the largest investment that has been made in any port in Spain” and has shown his “enormous satisfaction” because, he has pointed out, this action has “a tremendous impact on our city and economy”.
Regarding the steps to follow, Aurelio Martínez explained that, once the text is approved by the Board of Directors, it must go to Puertos del Estado for approval by the Council of Ministers. “We believe that they can do it quickly, that it can be answered urgently, but I hope that we can launch the tender in the first quarter of 2023,” he estimated. Overall, the adjudication process could close within the next year.
Regarding the cost, Martínez has estimated the works at 525 million, although he has recognized that in the current context of rising prices of raw materials and the energy crisis there may be an extra cost.
