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Miguel Ángel Morales: "The mine cannot be speculation, but Cáceres needs to create jobs"

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"It is true that the city needs an injection when it comes to creating employment, so the lithium mine project may be necessary." These are the words of Miguel Ángel Morales, president of the Provincial Council of Cáceres, on the exploitation of the Valdeflórez deposit. The CEO of Extremadura New Energies, Ramón Jiménez, assured that the investment would be 1,430 million euros and the creation of around 700 direct jobs for at least 26 years.

After the latest news in which the Municipal Group of Unidas Podemos unveiled some municipal documents that warned of the risks of this project, the provincial president stresses the importance of "having the complicity of all the actors" due to the social significance that the project will have: "We must try to join and join efforts of dialogue and consensus among all".

Morales also refers to the words of the former president of the Junta, Guillermo Fernández Vara, who referred to the lithium mine and pointed out that "it will go ahead if Cáceres wants it." "This city has a very peculiar environment, sociology and identity due to factors such as tourism or the place where it is located. It is well known, but not as well as we would like. It is important that this type of project has the approval of everyone," explains Morales.

For the president, the most important thing is that the project is not the result of business speculation to make profits and then go to another area: "The most important thing is that it transcends the economic interest of the company and reaches the social sphere. It must generate benefits and employment, always complying with all the guarantees," he says.

Morales does not dare to make an assessment that determines the benefits or damages that this project can bring to the city, but considers that "if it is necessary from a technical, social or environmental point of view, it should be done with all the guarantees". "It is the mayor, the technicians and the Junta de Extremadura who have all the responsibility. The provincial council does not know the ins and outs of the project," Morales stresses.

The intention of Infinity Lithium, parent company of Extremadura New Energies, announced last week that it will immediately concentrate in Spain all the weight of the management of the lithium extraction and first transformation project located in Cáceres, at the same time that it communicated a budgetary adjustment to adapt the operation of the company to the reality of the sector.