Spain taken to Europe over oil prospecting in Balearic waters

The Mar Blava (Blue Sea) Alliance has filed a complaint with the European Commission which accuses the Spanish Government of a violation of European environmental rules governing oil prospecting, as has occurred near to the Balearic Islands.
 Specifically, the pressure group refers to authorisations required for gas and oil prospecting in the western Mediterranean and it charges Spain with having “deliberately” ignored formal plans regarding hydrocarbons and their strategic environmental evaluation.
As such, therefore, Spain, it is claimed, has violated at least four articles contained in the European directive related to prospecting.
Mar Blava maintains that, among other things, the programme for oil exploration off the shores of the Balearics and in the Gulf of Valencia was not, prior to the exploration, submitted to a process of environmental assessment in respect of marine life conservation and general environmental impact.
Mar Balva has, therefore, called upon the European Commission to initiate an investigation and to require Spain to adopt the correct methods of evaluating environmental impact.
The ecology organisation has also said that separate exploration sites – those off the eastern coast of the mainland and those closer to Balearic shores – should be treated as being inter-related in that they affect the same geographical area: evaluations that have been carried out have been treated separately.