Overview
- The Consejo Consultivo de Andalucía issued a dictamen dated 21 May declaring the 2003 Carboneras building license null and void because it authorized work on land protected since 1994 and breached the 100-metre coastal protection servitude.
- The national Government has asked the Junta de Andalucía to convene the Ministry–Junta monitoring commission at once to activate the 2011 protocol that assigns demolition to the State and environmental restoration and waste management to the Junta.
- Carboneras town council is expected to bring the CCA-backed text to a plenary to formalize annulment, and the municipality will then open a separate procedure to assess any indemnity to promoter Azata del Sol while a partial expropriation launched in 2025 remains in progress.
- Greenpeace called the decision decisive and demanded machines enter the site immediately, estimating demolition and restoration costs above €7 million and arguing the license nullity weakens the promoter’s basis for large compensation claims.
- The ruling caps more than two decades of litigation, including Supreme Court findings in 2016 and 2023 that the area was non-developable, and shifts the dispute from legal challenges to practical tasks of funding, coordinating and scheduling demolition and habitat restoration.