Unions associated with the energy sector demonstrated to demand the continuation of the Atucha III project: the construction, with Chinese capital, of Argentina’s fourth power plant.
The uncertainty increases as the work is not planned in the national public budget for 2023.
Unionized workers associated with the energy sector complained to the federal government about the resumption of work at the Atucha III Nuclear Power Plant in the city of Lima, Buenos Aires province.
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The construction of Atucha III, the fourth nuclear power plant in the country, is one of the most important infrastructure projects signed between Argentina and China, with an investment of about 8.3 billion US dollars.
However, uncertainty engulfed unions associated with the plant’s construction when it was confirmed that it was not included in the national executive’s 2023 budget.
“We are affected and very concerned about the suspension of the construction of Argentina’s fourth nuclear power plant,” said the delegate of the Association of State Workers (ATE) in Atucha, Ernesto Simionato.
Simionato emphasized that in the nuclear sector “one cannot talk about a complete reactivation, because they have just suspended such a complex project”. The suspension not only has effects on national energy sovereignty, he emphasized, but also on the level of work.
“We don’t want to […] we have to fight again for the dismissed colleagues, because we know how it ends when a project of this magnitude is stopped”, said the head of the union, recalling the nearly 2,000 dismissals at the Atucha Complex during the government of Mauricio Macri (2015-2019). .
“If they don’t consider us in their agenda, we will have to protest wherever it is clear, we are here to bankroll the workers who hoped for this project,” concluded Simionato.
On February 1, 2022, the contract was signed between Nucleoeléctrica Argentina SA and China National Nuclear Corporation for the construction of Atucha III, the country’s fourth nuclear power plant, with an initial useful life of 60 years.
The works envisaged the creation of 7,000 jobs and the integration of 40% of national suppliers.
With information from Sputnik
