The state will next Thursday submit its response to the green organizations’ petition to the High Court of Justice against the EPA (Europe-Asia pipeline) agreement and the emirate company Red-Med. This, after months of hearings and rejection requests from the court. Under the agreement, EPA’s limited activities in Eilat will expand, and the southern city of Israel will become an oil transportation bridge from the UAE to the world.
Environmental organizations have decided to fight against the implementation of the agreement, which entered into force shortly after it was signed in October 2020. Government ministers also expressed opposition, along with academics who claim: a significant increase in the amount of oil transported through the port of Eilat will endanger the marine and coastal ecosystem. This is due to the increased likelihood that a malfunction or accident will occur that will lead to an oil spill.
But the position of the Prime Minister’s Office published this week marks a disappointment for the green organizations in the courtSee that the end of the struggle in the agreement – EPA is still far away.
Instead of a decision: a band-aid
The state’s response is still in the drafting stages in the High Court Department, with gaps between government ministries.
After the weight of the issue was placed on the shoulders of the Prime Minister, last night the Prime Minister’s Office announced: We will not interfere in the disputed oil transportation agreement. In other words, the state will not notify the High Court of Justice of the cancellation of the agreement and does not believe that it should be approved by the government in an exceptional manner – as the environmental organizations in the High Court demand. But Bennett also added that his ministry would not interfere with the Ministry of Environmental Protection’s discretion, as a regulator overseeing the volume of oil passing through the EPA port.
This means that the Prime Minister’s Office does not accept the claims of the environmental organizations in the petition. Bennett and Lapid have chosen to roll the hot issue to the mouths of the responsible regulators. The cancellation of the agreement is at the discretion of the government, which at this stage its members will prefer to avoid deciding on the controversial issue, due to the fragility of the coalition. The Ministry of Environmental Protection, which oversees the agreement, will be able to severely limit the EPA’s ability to implement it, as it has done so far, in accordance with the policy led by Minister Tamar Zandberg.
Thus, the implementation of the agreement shifts from the Prime Minister’s table to Minister Zandberg’s table. In November, the Ministry of Environmental Protection announced a policy of zero additional risk in the Gulf, according to which the EPA will not be able to extend the transportation of oil by tankers beyond the amount allowed in the toxins permit and according to the company’s factory emergency plan – 2 million tons per year.
Without a formal cancellation of the agreement, the ability of the Ministry of Environmental Protection to prevent its actual implementation can also be eroded. The Ministry of Environmental Protection can use its powers, but the Prime Minister’s Office leaves the EPA open to fight and attrition with the Ministry of Environmental Protection in the courts. When the minister changes – so can the ministry’s policy regarding the agreement – as long as it is not null and void.
We emphasize that the Ministry’s threshold concerns the quantities of oil passing through the port, and not the agreements signed in the EPA. Therefore, if the EPA reaches the Ministry of Environmental Protection’s threshold – something that has not happened in recent years, the government company can Or change other transactions in favor of complying with an agreement with the Emirates.
There is already an added risk
According to the agreement signed by EPA, the activity of the tank clerk at the port is expected to increase up to 30 times the actual clerks in the last decade (about 2.7 tankers per year on average). Determined for it, the EPA agreement is already bearing fruit in the field. This year, the number of oil tankers visiting Eilat has already doubled.
According to estimates based on the size of the tankers, this year, the EPA transported about 1.4 million tons through the Gulf of Eilat using 10 oil tankers. For comparison, in 2020, the year of the corona eruption, 5 oil tankers visited Eilat. In a tanker port included.
Each tanker is capable of carrying 270,000 tons of oil that are unloaded or loaded at the EPA port, but the amount of oil that did arrive in the tankers over the years is confidential. Fuel and unloading and loading of the tankers, to the point of fear of an increase in air pollution, due to the increase in tank traffic.
EPA boasted and paid
According to the Ministry of Finance, the main service that EPA will provide to the company is the storage of raw fuel in Ashkelon and Eilat, which also includes unloading and loading of tanks in ports.
EPA could have prevented opposition to the deal: not to disclose it. Only recently have senior government officials wondered about the public outrage that has led to not very new activity. It’s twice as big and that memorandum was approved in exactly the same way. “
And there is a basis for this claim, but it lies in the moves of the company itself. With the establishment of the Avraham Agreements, the EPA was quick to brag about the significant deal closed with a private company in the UAE.
Environmental organizations have stood on their own two feet, firstly because of the ecological risks, but secondly because it is a “finger in the eye” in an era of climate crisis: Its greenhouse gases.
The Greens’ next step
If Getz rejects the petition and leaves the matter to the government, the green organizations will have to fight not only for the decision, but also for the secrecy of the EPA. Almost no one knows the details of the agreement.
This means that the public can not judge whether the economic benefit justifies the environmental, health or security price. Thus, the environmental battle may coalesce with a much broader struggle against the EPA.