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Q2 has been mentioned a number of times as being a ‘landing zone’ for further developments and this ties in with the UNECE expectation.
Personally, my biggest fear would be that any decision is deferred and held over.
Thanks for your sterling efforts.
Many thanks for sharing that, Starrfox. Interesting and informative!
Dave is getting paid over 300k a year so not sure he that fussed either way…
Top work starfoxx
As well as the shares that DA owns , Dale Ferguson owns a huge number too, so there are two people close to the action who have a lot of skin in the game!
Brilliant research StarF
To answer the question, 'Can the EU kick the UNECE into some kind of urgency'. No, the United Nations is a global organisation so preferential treatment can't be offered to what is effectively an NGO claim against a state authority (Montescola vs APA). Also given the issue at hand is related to compliance it would be an even bigger issue for UNECE themselves to fault on their own procedures. That said I'm sure the likes of Maros have contacts who can give an indication of the likely outcome and he in turn may have given a nod to Archer.
My view on this is,
The original response from UNECE was, "While the Committee at this stage finds it premature to comment on the actual substance of the communication, it does relate to the procedures and obligations regulated by the provisions of the Aarhus Convention, and therefore the content of the communication could not be considered to be irrelevant.... Accordingly, the preliminary determination of the Committee, subject to review following any comments received from the Party concerned, is that the communication is admissible."
Effectively the claim is only admissible because it relates to a convention which Portugal entered into back in 2003, not the content of the claim itself which is to be reviewed. I've read the correspondence and barring a technical hiccup which prevented a few annexes of the EIA being available for download it does seem a tenuous claim. In a nutshell, Montescola wanted the EIA information before APA declared it compliant and initiated the public consultation. APA didn't provide the EIA information because if they had done so before it was deemed compliant then incorrect information would have been made public. To counteract the technical error APA then extended the public consultation from 30 to 60 days but Montescola said that's not enough. I can sympathise with that as SAV had multiple consultants to produce the EIA but this is where there's a fundamental issue within the EIA process, who employs consultants for a technical review of the application? This is where APA have fallen short in the review as they simply don't have the staff.
Anyway, there's been some back and forth over the past year with UNECE eventually asking for further and final information by 05/04/22. APA responded on time however Montescola didn't, they waited for APA's response to be available online then commented further a week later. UNECE won't look favorably on that and I wouldn't be surprised to see it noted in their response statement. A rather foolish move imo!
Below link shows all of the cases reviewed since 2004. If you look at the latest ones from 2021 3/6 have been deemed 'Not admissible'. Our best case scenario is a response at the upcoming meeting which will conclude the same.
https://unece.org/env/pp/cc/communications-from-the-public
As always DYOR, don't want to be crucified if this drags on but I'm quite content and confident personally that we're heading to a close.
Well CM, we certainly are a one pony trick, but DA himself has a small fortune tied up here, so he must be fairly confident of a nice retirement fund courtesy of SAV.
There comes a time though when DA needs to pull the lapin out of the chapeau (and hope it’s not a dead one)!
My understanding is that local opposition to the MdB mine is not great, but like many anti demonstrations, many objectors travel from afar. The EU are heavily involved in SAV through their EU Raw Materials initiatives, with SAV listed as first to mine. The EU need this mine approved just as much as we do, because they can’t just keep talking about the Green Revolution, EV’s and raw material security without having some success stories.
I have a part funded EU Horizon 2020 project and these days EU projects are scrutinised, analysed and supported to maximise chances of success.
I must admit that with the local opposition to MdB mine then I am not sure the EU would risk the negative publicity of allocating green funding to a contentious mining project, despite the downstream alignment with green EV's to replace gas guzzlers. But no harm in DA trying to raise profile of project at such levels as nothing ventured....
Exactly, Mick. Every day my news feeds are full of news concerning the urgent need for energy/Battery metal changes to suppy and logistics, and this seemingly small bit of bureaucracy is stonewalling one of the most important EU projects! If I were Maros Stefcovic, I would be banging some heads together right now!
Good point Hospi....throw billions to kick start a new industry, yet allow your very own institutions to delay the start. Why could they not bring forward the decision making meeting?
Happy to wait until mid-june. Which year.. David Archer is dealing with people who ,well best say nothing about them !!!
Can the EU kick the UNECE into some kind of urgency, or must we wait until the mid-June meeting? Damn frustrating, as everything else is aligning...Thoughts, Starfoxx et al.?