He mayor of El Prat de Llobregat, Lluís Mijolerhas warned that the proposal to expand the airport of Barcelona was and is “impossible” because “Europa would not have allowed it”, emphasizes that Aena, being a listed company With 49% private capital, “it is much more subject to the decisions of speculation than to the general interest.” In an interview with EFE, the also candidate of the Comuns to re-election has claimed that the Barcelona aerodrome have a common management model like the one that works in the Port of Barcelona, since it considers that the aeronautical manager lacks legitimacy to make strategic decisions for the country.
It contrasts the airport management model -in which Aena “orders” from Madrid- with that of the port, where “take into account to the territory” and “there is a will to reach consensus”. “Aena decide something from Madrid and pass the order. and if this it affects you and your territory, it’s your problem,” complains the mayor.
A board of directors
Instead, it points out that the Port of Barcelona is governed by a board of directors in which the General Administration of the statethe Generalitathe City hall of Barcelona and the El Prat City Council, unions and companies, while its president is elected by the Govern.
“If it is a model that works in the Port of Barcelona and the rest of the ports in Spain, whatwhy doesn’t it have to work in the airports?”, he reiterates. Continuing with the comparison, the mayor emphasizes that the port “has a already limited spaceand within its space it can expand its capacity, and it’s doing it sustainably.”
Pending technical commission
For Mijoler, the management discussion of the aerodrome must be one of the first points to be addressed in the technical commission on the Catalan airport model that the Government and the PSC agreed upon in the budget pact, and where it was already pointed out that the Generalitat would have to be part of the governance of the infrastructure.
Although he opposes El Prat increasing its number of flights, Mijoler is also forceful against “deception” that the airport can only grow by lengthening the third runway and affirms that there are alternatives within its current space.
Beyond the option of increasing the frequency of flights to 90 operations per hour without the need to undertake any physical expansion but increasing the noise disturbance for residents of Castelldefels y GaveMijoler argues that the capacity could also increase if the distance between takeoffs and between flight landings were reduced or by building the satellite terminal provided for in Aena’s plans.
Creation of the natural park
As for the natural area of the Llobregat Delta, which is the subject of an infringement procedure opened by the European Commission against Spain for lack of protection, Mijoler claims the enclave as an “essential green infrastructure”, in need of investment. The Generalitat announced almost a year ago its intention to expand the Special Protection Zone for Birds (ZEPA) of the Delta del Llobregat from the current 935 protected hectares to 2,372 to comply with the requirements of the European Commission.
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However, it has not yet approved it, a delay that Mijoler attributes to the Government’s “misgivings” about doing so before the municipal elections, given that it is an issue that has generated complaints between neighboring municipalities and some agricultural organizations. To meet the challenge of protect the deltathe mayor states that one of the ways to guarantee more resources would be for the space to be declared a natural park.
“Collserola it has ten times more resources, with a space where biodiversity is less. Everyone understands that Collserola or Montseny are a parque natural. So why not set this up in the heart of the metropolitan area? This means having a lot more resources,” he suggests.