Spain’s nationalist VOX party has launched a parliamentary initiative to halt what it calls the “colonisation” of rural land by foreign-backed solar energy firms—warning that the country’s food sovereignty is under threat as centuries-old olive groves are torn up to make way for solar panels.
The party has filed a motion in both chambers of Spain’s parliament, demanding a freeze on new solar projects on cultivated land and a rollback of fast-track permitting laws introduced by the socialist-led government. These laws, VOX argues, have stripped environmental safeguards and allowed mass tree felling and even forced expropriation of farmland under the guise of environmentalism.
VOX’s move comes amid growing public anger in Andalusia, the southern region that is both the heart of Spain’s olive oil industry and the focus of an aggressive renewable energy rollout. “Cutting down olive trees to install solar panels is a crime,” a local farmer told AFP, after learning his land could be seized for a corporate solar scheme. Eight projects alone are set to remove nearly 100,000 olive trees; local campaigners put the figure far higher, warning of up to half a million trees lost regionwide.
In towns like Lopera, the stakes are existential. Some 42,600 olive trees are due to be removed—wiping out a quarter of the town’s income and an estimated €3.1 million a year in lost wages and production. Farmers have taken to the streets, holding signs reading “We don’t want solar plants” and accusing the government of sacrificing their future for the profit of companies like Greenalia and FRV Arroyadas.
Critics say the transition to renewables is being driven by foreign investment funds chasing profit, not environmental benefit. Mature olive trees absorb up to 570kg of CO₂ per year—far more than saplings—making their destruction a net loss for the climate.
Meanwhile, Andalusia’s regional president, Juan Manuel Moreno Bonilla of the centre-right Popular Party, has been accused of hypocrisy for calling for EU support for farmers while presiding over the bulldozing of their land.
VOX has called for a shift toward agrivoltaic models that allow solar generation without destroying agriculture. “This transition cannot come at the expense of the Spanish countryside,” the party warned, “nor at the bidding of globalist multinationals.”