TIRANA, May 31 – A decision by the Albanian government to recall a tender on an abandoned hydropower plant along the Vjosa River has angered Albanian and European environmentalists seeking to protect one of Europe’s last wild waterways which they say is threatened by HPP dams.
The Albanian government has recently invited bids to reactivate the Kalivac hydropower plant, the first concession HPP Albania awarded in 1997, just few years after the collapse of the communist regime and its planned economy when Albania was facing turmoil triggered by the collapse of some pyramid investment schemes.
The new tender comes after the HPP contract was cancelled few months ago after almost two decades of almost no works at all. The concession was initially awarded to Italian businessman Francesco Bechetti whose Albania assets, including a local TV station, were seized in mid-2015 on suspicion of money laundering and fraud-related offences.
The Italian businessman is seeking hundreds of millions of euros in compensation over unfinished waste management and renewable energy production projects in Albania in an arbitration trial at the Washington-based International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID), part of the World Bank. The government has already paid about €2.3 million to a UK-based law firm defending Albania in the arbitration dispute.
The London-based businessman has also recently had financial problems with his Leyton Orient football club because of debts to players and creditors.
The construction of the dam initially funded by Becchetti Group and Deutsche Bank started in 2007, but was halted several times. Albanian prosecutors, who even issued an international arrest warrant against Beccetti, said the Italian businessman’s companies issued artificially swollen bills of work that was never done and asked for value-added tax refunds through forged documents.
However, environmentalists are hopeful of saving the Vjosa River as only 30 percent of construction works were completed, leaving the river yet unimpaired.
In its call for a July 18 tender, just three weeks after the June 25 general elections, the energy ministry says the concession hydropower plant will be a dam HPP close to the Kalivaৠvillage, in the southern Albanian district of Tepelena, along the downstream of Vjosa River from the quota of 113 meters above the sea level to the quota of 73 m.a.s.l.
Environmentalists worried
The reopening of the tender after almost two decades has also angered activists including Vienna-based Riverwatch, Germany’s EuroNatur, already in a legal battle over another big hydropower plant the Albanian government has approved along Vjosa.
Activists say the Vjosa river and its ecosystem is also threatened by another big concession hydropower plant, the Poà§em, which a first instance court recently suspended but whose decision has been appealed by the Albanian government. Last November, the Albanian government concluded contracts negotiations with a Turkish consortium to build a 100 MW Poà§em hydropower plant under a 35-year concession contract, in what is expected to be one of the country’s biggest HPPs.
“The court’s decision against Poà§em, which was based on a highly deficient Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) as well as public consultation process, indicates the flawed rule of operation inside the government. We call upon the Albanian authorities to follow national law and international standards in regards to the Kalivaৠconcession procedure,” says Ulrich Eichelmann, the coordinator of the “Save the Blue Heart of Europe” campaign at Riverwatch.
Gabriel Schwaderer, the CEO of the EuroNatur Foundation, is also worried the Kalivaৠrace has been reopened only a month ahead of the general elections.
“It is remarkable that the Albanian government re-opens the Kalivaৠcase just one month before the national elections. The government’s decision to utilize the Vjosa for hydropower instead of protecting the last wild river in Europe is of utmost consequence in regard to the accession to the EU and should not have been rushed during the election period,” he has said.
Olsi Nika of the EcoAlbania NGO says the government has decided to re-open the concession procedure against the will of local authorities and communities, national and international stakeholders, ruining plans to declare Vjosa ‘Europe’s first wild river national park.’
“We will vigorously fight against this project and for a dam-free Vjosa,” says Nika, the coordinator of the Vjosa campaign in Albania.
Mayors’ protest
Earlier this year, local government units along the Vjosa River in southern Albania came together in an appeal to the Albanian government over saving one of Europe’s last wild waterways which is threatened by a big hydropower plant that has received the final okay to start construction works, defying calls by local residents, environmentalists, civil society activists and even members of the European Parliament to protect what they call a unique ecosystem and the “Blue Heart of Europe.”
In an open letter to Prime Minister Edi Rama and Parliament Speaker Ilir Meta, the mayors of Permet, Tepelene, Memaliaj, Mallakaster and Selenice nominated by both the ruling majority and the opposition Democrats in the February 2015 local elections, called on the central government to suspend concession contracts on hydropower plants threatening to dam Vjosa River and destroy sustainable tourism in one of Europe’s last wild rivers.
Vjosa is one of Europe’s last intact waterways, famous for its Canyons drawing kayakers from all over the world. It flows freely from the Pindus Mountains in Greece to the Adriatic Sea over a course of 270 kilometers. Scientifically, the river remains largely unexplored.
Concession contracts to build hydropower plants in the Vjosa and Valbona rivers have sparked protests among local residents who fear the emerging tourism industry and the unique ecosystems will suffer a severe setback.
Construction on the first of 14 proposed hydro-power plants has already started in the Valbona Valley, northeastern Albania, despite protests by local residents and environmentalists who say they will destroy tourism in the pristine area in northeastern Albania. Activists and local residents fighting to protect Valbona and its emerging mountain tourism have also recently initiated a legal battle to cancel the HPP concession contracts along one of the country’s most beautiful rivers.
However, cancelling the concession contracts would be a bit difficult and legally costly for the Albanian government which has been promoting investment in hydropower plants through concession contracts.
Private and concession hydropower plants have increased their share in the country’s wholly hydro-dependent domestic electricity generation to about a third after more than 100 HPPs were made operational in the past decade.
