The Uruguayan government rejected on Wednesday Argentina’s ultimatum referred to the UPM (former Botnia) pulp mill production expansion, and doubled the bet by proposing a reform of the shared River Uruguay Statute to increase environmental impact standards but also include both margins of the waterway.
The bilateral conflict between Argentina and Uruguay over the UPM/Botnia pulp mill, on the Uruguayan side of the Uruguay River is once again leading to tension between the two neighbours amid reports that the plant’s Finnish owners plan to increase production from 1.1 to 1.3 million tons of cellulose paste per year.
A huge pulp mill, UPM, which has been at the heart of a several years’ controversy between Uruguay and Argentina, does not contaminate revealed Uruguay’s Foreign Affairs minister Luis Almagro before the Uruguayan parliament.
Uruguay and Argentina announced they had reached a final “scientific” agreement for the joint environmental monitoring of the UPM-Botnia pulp mill in shared waters and which delaying the implementation of a bilateral agreement.
Much as was anticipated, Uruguay and Argentina celebrated as favourable the ruling of the International court of Justice regarding a long standing pulp mills dispute, while environmentalists were totally disappointed and promised to continue and intensify their protests and pickets.