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Authorities in the Canary Islands will allow its residents to vote on plans to drill for oil and gas off the coast of the popular tourist destination.
Spain’s government outraged the islands’ officials, residents and environmental groups in August by giving oil group Repsol permission to explore near the archipelago.
The Conservative regional president, Paulino Rivero, said he would ask residents to vote on the proposals, which he fiercely opposes, on 23 November. “Do you think the Canaries should change its environmental and tourism model for the sake of oil and gas exploration? That is the question that will be put to the vote,” he said.
Residents of the seven-island group, off the north-west coast of Africa, fear drilling will harm the environment and disrupt the tourism industry on which their economy relies. The company has been authorised to spend three years scouring below the seabed 30 miles from Lanzarote and Fuerteventura.
Under the terms of the deal, Repsol must provide a €20m (£15.7m) deposit to cover its environmental responsibilities. It must also halt its explorations if an earthquake stronger than magnitude 4.5 strikes the region.
Those safeguards have failed to satisfy the deal’s opponents, however. A civil rights group has called for protests across the seven Canary islands on 18 October under the slogan “We live here, we decide here”.
