The mayor, Luis Salaya, and the platform Save the Mountain of Caceresthe citizen group that has championed the ‘no’ to the project of a mine in Cáceres, distance themselves. This Wednesday has been the first time that they have shown discrepancies in public since in December 2017 the socialist municipal group expressed for the first time its clear refusal of the project when the plan that the company, then was Plymouth Mineral, previous denomination of infinity Lithium, became known. , presented at the Board for an open pit mine and the effects and dimensions of it began to be known. The platform was established a few weeks before, although there were already citizen groups that rejected the mine.
The cause of this distancing is the change of the project, which goes from an open pit mine to an underground one.and the position that each part maintains on it. And the trigger has been some statements by the mayor this Tuesday on the Cope chain and the statement made public this morning by the platform. The statements of both parties are preceded by the meeting held on Monday at the town hall.
In his statements to Cope, the mayor commented that the local government “is not in opposition to the new project -of underground mine-, we are in contrast that things are done well, that they are legal” and in analyzing what the company proposes, now called Extremadura New Energies, when it registers the underground mine project, adding that The most important thing is that the decision is going to be made in Cáceres and that “it has not been made” because the project must first be analyzed and “there must be a social debate”.
Regarding the meeting held on Monday with the platform, the mayor assured that he told them that he respects his position of refusal of the project, but that if his position is one of rejection “without seeing it – the project – or going further, our paths separate here “.
The platform replied this morning that the new underground project will be examined for its part once it is registered with the administration and in subsequent periods of public exposure. Until then, his position will continue to be one of suspicion towards the initiative due to the company’s background that makes them “suspect and distrust that they are selling something that does not exist, and suspicions are aggravated by knowing the background and the trajectory that we have been observing during those five years of accumulation of disciplinary proceedings and monetary fines.”
After detailing all the causes that motivate this distrust, The platform closes its statement wishing the mayor to “sleep peacefully following this parting of the ways with the platform” and to rest better “for having abandoned a position that he now calls populist”
For its part, The spokesman for the Junta de Extremadura, Juan Antonio González, has signed this morning the words of the mayor of Cáceres regarding the new Valdeflores mine project, and has stressed that if this is “environmentally sustainable” there should be “no problem” and furthermore “no politician can oppose”.