In a text largely adopted by the senators, the right -wing elected officials have also refused to introduce a notion of distance from the coasts in the establishment of wind projects at sea.
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Finally, the government will have won. While the Senate adopted at first reading, on the night of Friday 4 to Saturday 5 November, at a large majority, the bill relating to the acceleration of the production of renewable energies by 320 votes for and 5 against ( Four elected representatives and a centrist), the right -wing senators have given up during the examination of the text to two of the proposals which would have, if they had been voted, modified the nature of the text presented by the executive.
On the issue of wind turbines at sea first of all. While some senators had wished to impose a minimum distance of 40 kilometers, or even more for the establishment of this type of project – invoking “a considerable visual impact” -, the idea was ultimately not retained. At the end of an eventful session, late Friday afternoon, elected officials voted by 186 votes to 151 of the amendments suppressing this controversial addition, to which the government was unfavorable.
“With this provision, we will no longer be able to launch projects, even floating, in the North Sea, in the Channel and in the Mediterranean. Only the Atlantic Ocean could host projects,” warned the Minister of the Energy transition Agnès Pannier-Runacher. “Let’s not cut the wings to the French marine wind sector”, for their part, exhorted certain elected officials like the socialist Jean-Michel Houllegatte.
“Make planning”
This decision was made while the day before, another major provision for right -wing senators had been rejected. Elected officials had this time refused to grant mayors a possible veto right on the establishment of renewable energy projects in their territory. A measure all the more controversial as its promoters wished to see it extended to the neighboring municipalities “in visibility” of said project.
“Do we really defend the mayors by giving them the atomic weapon of the right of veto but who at the same time empowers them?” Asked the president of the centrist group in the Senate, Hervé Marseille, To justify such a retropedering. For the senator of Hauts-de-Seine, such a measure would have given “the image of a Senate hostile to renewable energies”.
In place, the elected officials of the Luxembourg Palace voted by hand a fairly complex device, allowing mayors to define “zoning zones” where these projects could be established. “Instead of being on a no or a yes on the part of elected officials, we will do planning by integrating areas reserved at the intercommunalities scale, then at the regional level, explained Nadège Havet, senator (gathering of Democrats, progressives and independent) of Finistère. Project leaders will have everything to gain in the areas identified by elected officials because in town planning documents there is a public consultation phase. “
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