Joan Calabuig, the new president of the port of Valencia, yesterday again cited the PowerCo gigafactory, the great economic argument of the socialist campaign, as one of the largest investments in the Valencian Community and of which he said the port will have to give a “agile, solid and efficient” response. He was later supported in the idea by the president of the Generalitat Valenciana, Ximo Puig, who made it clear that the port of Valencia was "fundamental" for Volkswagen to decide to settle in Sagunt. "The port must always be a fundamental lever for companies of the Valencian Community”, said Puig.
The economy and its effects always dominate the discourse that surrounds the port, but the tensions that arise around it also call for other perspectives, a "social and environmental" dimension that Calabuig also put on the table in his first speech as president of the port. It was one of the first ideas that he expressed at his inauguration, held yesterday at the Edificio del Reloj de València, with the assistance of the main Valencian institutions, including the mayor of Valencia, Joan Ribó.
He advocated listening to those affected, for dialogue, and for responding to the "new reality." A speech - "from everyone", Calabuig pointed out - that Ribó later held, noting that he had spoken "clearly" about sustainability. The mayor was also convinced that both will work "so that the port and the city can reach great agreements."
And it is that Calabuig concluded that the "economic projection and the environmental commitment are inseparable", but in practice the debate is on the table. North extension, yes or no? In favor is the employers, who press and explain the opportunities that would be lost if they did not do it, as well as the PSPV and the PP. Against, Compromís and Unides Podem, environmental groups and neighborhood associations such as the Federation of Neighborhood Associations of Valencia, which requested a new environmental impact statement to assess the current project.
Yesterday its president, María José Broseta, attended the inauguration of Calabuig, from whom she hopes "a dialogue is real, that positions are not castled, that it is possible to see what the possibilities are, the approaches, because everything is potentially possible or impossible," he told La Vanguardia.
Broseta assures that with the previous president, Aurelio Martínez, it had been “difficult” to understand each other because “he refused to return to make another environmental impact statement; and in all the expansions that have taken place, it was always seen that the port was the only thing that mattered”, a consideration that he hopes will change now. Broseta recalls that citizenship matters, "both those who reside in Poblats Marítims and the rest" and focuses on other open tensions between the city and the port, such as the transfer of land from the Marina or the Logistics Activities Zone ( ZAL), an open litigation because the Supreme Court (TS) has accepted for processing the appeals presented by the Generalitat Valenciana and by the Valencia Intermodal and Logistics Platform against the cancellation of the Special Plan for this infrastructure.
"The city participates little in the decisions of the Port, it only has two representatives, and there are many issues to be resolved, such as the debt with La Punta or Natzaret," recalls Broseta, who thus recalls all those open folders that little by little Joan Calabuig will have what to tackle
