In the trial, which took place over four days in a Civil Court, the Board invoked the principle of “whoever pollutes pays”, while Boliden's defense argued that the company did not have the obligation to restore the situation of the affected land to its previous state

The Swedish mining multinational Boliden will not have to pay the almost 90 million euros that the Junta de Andalucía demanded for cleaning up the toxic spill caused by the rupture of a raft in the Aznalcóllar mine (Seville) in 1998, according to the sentence handed down by the Court of First Instance 11 of Seville.

The sentence, to which EFE had access this Friday and which dismisses the Board's claim, concludes that there is no “specific coverage that would insure the risk whose cost the plaintiff has assumed, that is, the obligation to restore things to state in which they were at the time they were affected by the activity”.

The Board will appeal

The spokesman for the Andalusian Government and Minister of Sustainability, Environment and Blue Economy, Ramón Fernández-Pacheco, has stated that the Board will appeal, first “on appeal”, the ruling. In an audio, he has expressed the “most absolute respect” for this judicial resolution, which “is not yet final” and which comes after 25 years “of jurisdictional pilgrimage” by the Board both through civil and administrative channels.

“A case in which there are no precedents either in jurisprudence or in doctrine and that is part of the legal interpretation of the regulatory framework applicable 25 years ago that, of course, the Junta de Andalucía does not share,” he pointed out..

Fernández-Pacheco has indicated that the Andalusian Government is absolutely convinced of the existence “of a responsibility on the part of the Boliden Group and we have the firm intention of appealing this sentence first on appeal and going, if necessary, to the Supreme Court”.

He has stated that, among the reasons for appealing, is that we are facing “very bad news for Andalusia and for the environment”, without forgetting that the Board has already spent almost 90 million euros to repair the consequences of a mining accident “whose exclusive responsibility we understand is attributable to the Boliden Group”.

Another reason to appeal is that one of the main values defended by the Andalusian Government “is that of the most absolute respect for our natural environment and of course the principle that whoever pollutes pays”, as pointed out