ARCHIVED - Spanish government plans to ban fracking

Legislation is being drawn up to prohibit the technique throughout the country

The Spanish government has announced its intention to ban the practice of fracking throughout the country by means of a new Law for Climate Change and Transition which is currently being drawn up, according to an official answer given to a question raised by Senator Carles Mulet.

The government statement includes an assurance that until now no project has been undertaken in Spain to extract underground gas or oil supplies by using the controversial technique of hydraulic fracturing, in which rock is fractured by a pressurized liquid. However, Article 8 of the proposed new law will impose limits and restrictions on all new exploration and investigation activities related to the extraction of hydrocarbons, and it will become impossible for licences to be granted for fracking either on land or in Spanish territorial waters.

In the past various regional governments in Spain have introduced legislation banning fracking, but the laws have been overturned by the Constitutional Court on the grounds that by passing such laws they are overstepping the limits of their powers. At the same time the Senate has approved a law which includes fracking as a viable alternative for producing energy sources in the Canaries, the Balearics, Ceuta and Melilla, but the technique has not been used largely because of the widespread opposition among the general public, and in 2016 the five companies which had requested licences effectively withdrew their requests.

In the Region of Murcia it has theoretically been possible to use fracking on 180,000 hectares of land in the north according to a document which has been in force in Spain since 2013, but the opposition to the practice has been made clear on numerous occasions by protesters in Cieza, Caravaca de la Cruz and other municipalities. The Cuenca del Segura Libre de Fracking (CSLF) platform group has on numerous occasions highlighted the risk of pollution being caused in both underground and overground bodies of water by the controversial technique as well as other “environmental, social and economic” dangers, particularly related to the proximity of the area to the Syncline of Calasparra, one of the most important aquifers in the Segura basin and a source of drinking water as well as irrigation water.

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