Around 7,000 people demonstrated this Saturday, according to data from the Civil Guard, amid shouts of “it won’t close” and banners that They claim the Almaraz Nuclear Power Plant as an “engine of life and progress” demanding the continuity of this plant.
Called by the ‘Yes to Almaraz, Yes to the Future’ Platform, the day of demands started at 10:00 a.m. in the Town Hall Square of Almaraz, where around 2,500 people were counted, among whom were the president of the Government of Extremadura, María Guardiola; the general secretary of the PSOE of Extremadura and president of the Badajoz Provincial Council, Miguel Ángel Gallardo, and the president of the Cáceres Provincial Council, Miguel Ángel Morales.
Also present were the general secretary of the Vox Parliamentary Group in Congress, José María Figaredo, and the national deputy of Vox for Badajoz, Ignacio Hoces, as well as the mayors of the towns in the area of influence of the Almaraz Nuclear Power Plant and the president of the Extremadura Energy Cluster, Vicente Sánchez.
Guardiola will go “to the end” to avoid closure
The demonstration has left from the Town Hall Square of Almarazwhere María Guardiola has described as “historic” this day of “vindication” and “dignity of the Extremaduran and Spanish people”, highlighting the participation of authorities, associations and the civil population “above colors” to “try to stop” a closure that has been called “nonsense.”
“You start in Extremadura, but This is not a country issue, it is a state policy and we are putting Spain’s energy sovereignty at risk,” the leader of the regional Executive warned in statements to the media, who immediately encouraged Spanish society to join her demands.
Likewise, Guardiola, who has led the march carrying the ‘Yes to Almaraz, Yes to the Future’ banner, along with other authorities, has asserted that the Extremadura Government will “go to the end” and do “everything necessary.” to avoid closure” because, he stressed, they are “tired of the future of the region being decided in the offices of Madrid.”
Almaraz, the “most necessary” industry in Extremadura
During the rally, the mayor of Almaraz, Juan Antonio Díaz, described the town’s power plant as the “most necessary industry in Extremadura”while insisting that not a single minute can be “wasted in defending its continuity” if we wish to avoid job loss and increased depopulation.
“Today the fight begins, and I ask the Government of the nation to rectify it, because it is brave to recognize mistakes,” Díaz said about this plant which, as explained by the president of the Business Committee, Borja Romero, generates “7 percent of the energy produced in Spain”.
Taking this percentage and remembering that the plant produces “the equivalent of the electricity consumption of four million homes”, the spokesperson for the PP of Extremadura, José Ángel Sánchez Juliá, has expressed his wishes that the demands of this day of protest “will resonate tomorrow ” at the 15th Regional Congress of the PSOE in which the President of the Government and Secretary General of the PSOE, Pedro Sánchez, will be present.
“The plant must remain open so that the largest economic engine that the region has continues to be a source of wealth and employment in Extremadura,” Juliá added.
It should be noted, as recalled by the ‘Yes to Almaraz, Yes to the Future’ Platform, that although the “definitive closure” of the plant is scheduled to be executed between 2027 and 2028, the closure will be “irreversible if the schedule is not reversed in the first months of 2025.”
“We cannot lose one of the best plants in the world,” the mayor of Toril and president of the Campo Arañuelo community, Eugenio Trebejos, lamented at the end of the demonstration, after highlighting that more and more countries, including in the European Union , They are betting on nuclear energy as an irreplaceable axis of development.
Finally, the president of the convening platform, mayor of Belvís de Monroy and plant worker, Fernando Sánchez, has claimed that “Extremadurans deserve once and for all to be heard”, adding that the Almaraz plant is key if a “reindustrialization in Extremadura” is desired.
Gallardo urges Guardiola to “guarantee” the “real alternative”
Although this Saturday the 15th Regional Congress of the PSOE of Extremadura opens in the Cáceres town of Plasencia, where Miguel Ángel Gallardo will be ratified as general secretary of the formation in the region, he also wanted to be personally at the concentration for the sake of “guarantee maximum support” from his party for Almaraz to continue until there is “an alternative that can absorb employment” and “guarantee the well-being and wealth” of the region.
“We say no to closure, as long as that alternative does not exist,” stressed the leader of the socialists in the region, immediately urging the regional Executive to “do its job” so that “that alternative arrives.”
In this sense and after claiming as a “real project” for the Campo Arañuelo region the lithium battery gigafactory in Navalmoral de la MataGallardo has disgraced that “after a year and a half” the Extremadura Government “has not put out to tender the necessary works” that would supply it with water.
On the other hand, the socialist has called on the proprietary companies to request the extension from the Central Executive as a “previous step” and “necessary gesture” for continuity, at the same time that he has been blunt in pointing out that the PSOE will not accept ” the blackmail of companies in relation to taxes”.
“It cannot be that the continuity of Almaraz or that extension of taxes is conditioned,” Gallardo insisted after considering that “the tax privileges They cannot be given to those who have great benefits”, as, he has pointed out, happens with electricity companies.
The president of the Cáceres Provincial Council, Miguel Ángel Morales, has joined the request for an extension, who confessing that he does not know “any fairly objective reason to be able to close the Almaraz nuclear plant” has assured that “it is difficult for people to live “in the towns of the region” if there is no employment.
“If anything is proven, it is that the Almaraz Nuclear Power Plant is providing a lot of jobs for a long time,” Morales said, recalling that the plant generates approximately 3,000 direct jobs.
Vox sees the closure as a “lethal blow” to progress
Convinced that the closure of Almaraz would constitute a “lethal blow” to energy sovereignty and the “material and industrial progress” of the country, the national Vox deputy for Badajoz Ignacio Hoces has regretted that the Government of Pedro Sánchez works “every day against the general interests” and, in this case, “attacking a strategic sector what nuclear energy is like.”
“Closing the Almaraz nuclear power plant is an assault, an attack and a theft of the socioeconomic and labor interests of our beloved region of Extremadura,” Hoces considered, adding that this closure “is not an isolated event.”
For his part, the general secretary of the Vox Parliamentary Group in Congress, José María Figaredo, has charged against socialists and ‘popular’ people for causing the closure of the plant, something that, he predicted, will mean an “almost automatic increase in energy prices.” electric”.
Claiming his party as “totally in favor of nuclear energy”, Figaredo has defended the importance of “maintaining all the nuclear power plants that Spain currently has” as well as “beginning to study the opening” of “additional” plants that contribute a greater percentage of the country’s electrical energy”.
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