Environmentalists, social and neighborhood entities demonstrate in Barcelona against the expansion of El Prat

BarcelonaThousands of people are demonstrating this Sunday in Barcelona against the future expansion of El Prat airport, in a mobilization called by Zeroport, the platform against the expansion, which is supported by 210 entities, social, neighborhood and environmental groups, as well as various personalities and academics and some political parties, such as Comuns, ERC or the CUP. Farmers from the Baix Llobregat who have traveled to Barcelona with their tractors, and other inhabitants of the area who arrived by bicycle to the Catalan capital, are also participating in the demonstration.

The demonstration takes place five years after the great mobilization against the airport expansion and just the week in which the Spanish government has approved the DORA III, the investment plan for Spanish airports, which plans to allocate more than 1.7 billion euros to El Prat airport, basically for the improvement of the T1 and T2 terminals and their parking lots. The plan, which foresees investments until 2031, only plans to allocate almost 192 million euros for the expansion, but without foreseeing any construction work, only preliminary procedures, so the possible extension of the third runway would not begin, if it were to be carried out, until after 2032.

The march against the airport expansion has started at the intersection of Passeig de Gràcia and Carrer Aragó and is expected to end at Plaça de Sant Jaume. With the slogan No to the expansion, not now and not ever, some 10 columns have been organized to reach the demonstration on foot, by bicycle, metro and train from the neighborhoods of Barcelona and towns in the metropolitan area. "The governments of the Generalitat and the State and Aena engage in climate denial and act irresponsibly when they blindly defend the expansion of the airport," says Joan Manel del Llano, member of the Zeroport platform.

Zeroport considers that a new expansion of El Prat airport would have effects far beyond the "loss of biodiversity" and the "destruction of the Llobregat delta". "It would reinforce the economic model based on tourism over a saturated metropolitan area, and would further harm access to housing for people across the country, directly impacting their economy and social cohesion," said del Llano.

"With this demonstration we aspire to mobilize, as we did 5 years ago, a representative sample of Catalan society against the expansion of Barcelona airport", according to Clàudia Custodio, also a member of the Zeroport platform. "In that September of 2021, thousands of us gathered on Tarragona street and, knowing that the expansion had already been halted, we expressed that it would likely be necessary to do so again later on", says Custodio.

The expansion of El Prat continues to divide Catalan society, with opposition from environmental organizations due to the impact on the wetlands of the delta and organizations that want to control the influx of tourists to the Principality, while the majority of employers' associations and economic organizations are in favor. This same week, the Barcelona Chamber of Commerce and the Association of Economists of Catalonia have once again spoken out in favor of the expansion. The institution has pointed out that the air infrastructure is at its limit and not expanding it "conditions the economy" of Catalonia, which depends on "these projects to maintain its competitiveness and continue growing and progressing in a changing international context".

Division

The work is so controversial that it even divides the Spanish government. The Minister of Transport, Óscar Puente (socialist), made it clear during the presentation of the investment plan for the 2027-2031 period that if the European Union endorses the project in environmental terms, the expansion would be addressed in the next investment plan, the DORA IV. In contrast, the Minister of Culture, Ernest Urtasun (Sumar), showed his opposition this same week to the "unleashed growth model" of El Prat airport which will cause an increase in visitors "in a metropolitan area and a city of Barcelona that are already very strained by tourism". Also, the leader of ERC, Oriol Junqueras, an investiture partner of the socialist government in the State, showed himself against the expansion on Thursday and demanded that the Spanish government not sell "smoke and not announce money that might not end up being put in" after the presentation of the DORA III, which includes items for preparatory actions.