The Environmental Safety Group is to meet with Conservative MEP Ashley Fox during his visit to Gibraltar this week. The group’s legal adviser, David Dumas QC from Hassan’s International Law Firm, will also be present at the meeting. They will brief Mr. Fox and bring him up to date on the current environmental situation in the Bay so he can address these important issues more effectively in Brussels on the group’s behalf.

These meetings follow on from a paper published recently by the ESG and forwarded to Gibraltar’s MEPs. The paper focuses  on the marginalisation of major environmental issues in the Bay due to political tensions.  

The worsening situation at Western Beach will be discussed as will concerns of weaker monitoring by Spanish authorities of the large chemical installations and Oil Refinery located in the Campo area due to the economic crisis in Spain.  

An example of the severity of the problem is a 2012 report commissioned by the Spanish authorities and recently published in the press by Spanish environmental NGO's. It confirmed that nickel levels found by air monitoring systems were among the highest in Andalucía and were linked to Acerinox, a steel processing plant, located in the Bay. The ESG says that this is just another reminder of the threat to health and the environment posed by these large chemical industries that need to be monitored very rigorously. A spokesperson for the ESG added that “The impact of such toxic pollution is far reaching and must be dealt with at European level."