The Pilsen region, the city of Pilsen, the surrounding municipalities and aviation schools reject the decision of the government, which yesterday supported the plan to build a factory for batteries for electric cars, the so-called gigafactory, at the reserve army airport Líně near Pilsen. They want to keep the airport. They still have no information about the project from the state or from the investor, the Volkswagen concern (VW). They also want to know whether the army needs the airport or not, it was announced.
Pilsen yesterday sent a letter to the Ministry of Industry and nominated deputy Pavel Bosák (Pirates) to the working group on the possible construction of a gigafactory, which was established on Tuesday and will meet for the first time on Friday from 11:00 a.m., says Pilsen Mayor Roman Zarzycký (ANO).
Prime Minister Petr Fiala (ODS) will inform the management of VW about today’s government verdict, which is considering the Czechia as one of the three locations for the gigafactory. According to the head of the board of Škoda Auto, Klaus Zellmer, the decision on its location could be made by the end of the year. In addition to the four-hundred-hectare army airport Líně, where dozens of flight schools and an air ambulance service operate today, Poland and Hungary are also in the game.
“We will not support anything until we have the opinion of the army, which none of us know to this day because it is secret in the regime. Either it has to be declassified or someone has to say what is in the resolution. For now, it is purely a government action,” he said Governor Rudolf Špoták (Pirates). He demands that studies be drawn up for the project, it must be assessed whether the factory could stand next to the airport area. According to Špoták, the region is permanently consistent in these attitudes, but it does not yet know anything, not even what is in the government’s resolution. “If there is demolition of the airport without us knowing the conclusions of the army, then the Pilsen region will not agree to the project,” he said. When the army says that it needs the airport as a strategic and development area, the region will not go against the army.
The new mayor of Pilsen, Zarzycký, was very surprised by the government’s verdict yesterday. “I support the preservation of the airport. I will never say a favorable opinion (with the gigafactory project) until we see the environmental impacts, social and infrastructural solutions and personnel measures that will tell where the thousands of people will be taken,” he said. The factory is supposed to employ 4,500 people and another 10,000 people are supposed to work in nearby supplier companies.
According to the mayor, Pilsen will be a participant in all the proceedings because it owns roughly 15 percent of the area there. “And as the owner of Vodárna Plzeň (the only possible supplier of water to the area), we have a strong enough tool to resist this project, which I do not support at the moment,” said the mayor. His deputies Bosák and Aleš Tolar (STAN) expressed the same opinion at Tuesday’s council meeting.
“I am in favor of preserving the airport in Líní. And I am still the deputy in the county, who is in charge of investments and property, and I have absolutely no information about it, and I think that even the government cannot proceed like this. And I will be the first to tell them resist,” said the mayor. He does not consider it comfortable that information is constantly learned only from the media.
According to Špoták, the region also wants to preserve the airport. “Work should be done on the possibility of building an industrial zone while preserving the airport. But for that, all the studies that the mayor talked about need to be done,” he said. According to the governor, the army may want to build additional infrastructure on the area in addition to maintaining the airport area.
“I consider it very unfortunate that this is being discussed in secret the entire time. And I am not surprised by the government opposition that it is sounding the alarm, because during the third reading of the draft budget, it read about the nine billion item (state investment in the preparation of the industrial zone) that it is being discussed in secret mode. This also arouses a certain emotion in me and a greater determination to be on the side of the airport,” said Zarzycký.
Source: CTK
