The members of the panel, which concluded on Thursday a three-day meeting called at the initiative of the Italian Uil-Pa trade union, believe that no objective public debate had taken place in the process of approving the plans for the terminal.
The panel found several faults with the documents provided by Natural Gas. Some parts of studies lack signatures, the documents often quote Spanish provisions that might not be applied in Italy and some documents have also not been translated into Italian.
The panel furthermore pointed out that the Italian translation of the study on environmental impact is shorter than the original. It also found differences between the two versions in some points.
In addition, the documents do not examine the possible domino effect in case of an accident or an attack. Moreover, the plans are based on maps from the 1950s. The panel also found inconsistencies in plans, with different versions of plans putting gas reservoirs at different ends of the terminal.
A member of the Environment Committee of the regional parliament of Italy's Friuli-Venezia Giulia, Elio De Anna, also said yesterday that the documentation on the terminal was incomplete.
He was replying to a question of a deputy of the Slovenian Community (SSk), Igor Gabrovec, on the regional government's position regarding the documents on the terminal and the fact that a representatives of the regional authorities have not been invited to meetings of the Environment Ministry's technical commission tasked with examining environmental aspects of the project.
According to Italian press agency Ansa, De Anna said the regional authorities were waiting for documents demanded by the commission before they take a position.
He added however that the region agreed with the government in Rome that a gas terminal was vital for the development of the area.
Slovenia opposes the plans that the facility for re-gasification of liquified gas be built just a kilometre away from its border. The countries are in talks over the issue, with Italy having promised it would deliver all the relevant documentation to Slovenia.
Environment Minister Karl Erjavec suggested recently that he expects Italy to push ahead with the plan to allow the construction of the terminal regardless of the outcome of bilateral talks on the environmental effects of the project.
Slovenia already said it would file a lawsuit before the European Court of Justice if necessary.
