The permit, which expired on Thursday, had already been extended for six months after the government awarded the licence in May last year. In May 2018 the Government of Catalonia declared via its Official Gazette that it had given Hard Rock Entertainment World permission to build a casino and leisure complex in Vila-Seca and Salou.

To date, the Hard Rock subsidiary, which has contributed about €5.5 million in guarantees to maintain the right to build the casino and leisure centre, must undertake a capital increase that has not yet been undertaken according to local media sources.

A large scale project in the area has been in the pipeline for years but has been fraught with difficulties. In June 2015, the Veremonte Group, the investment company that had been leading the initiative to create Europe’s largest holiday resort in Europe (under the name BCN World) announced its decision to withdraw from the project. When it was abandoned In order to guarantee the project’s continuation the Catalan Government reached an agreement with La Caixa Bank for the rights to buy the 500 hectares of land allocated for BCN World.

In November the government of Catalonia assured lawmakers that the negotiations for Hard Rock to acquire the land in of Vila-seca and Salou were still open.

The government was responding to a question put forward by members of the Comú Podem coalition. The Minister of Territory and Sustainability, Damià Calvet said that the government “does not foresee any cost if the project does not start up.” The Generalitat plans to acquire the land from Criteria CAIXA – the investment holding company of La Caixa and then sell the land to Hard Rock. However, the terms and clauses of the sales contract have not yet been defined. In June, Calvet assured lawmakers that the purchase will be made with no additional cost from state coffers.

Meanwhile activist groups opposed to the new leisure zone on Catalonia’s southern coast have demanded that the licence for the Hard Rock Entertainment World be revoked.

Both Aturem BCN World and environmentalist group Ecologists of Catalonia (GEPEC) filed a petition last month to revoke the Hard Rock casino license before the General Directorate of Taxation and Games Department. According to opponents of the new resort, Hard Rock did not present all the documentation required in the bidding process which took place in May 2018 and which expired this November.

If it goes ahead the casino will be called Hard Rock Hotel & Casino Tarragona, España. The Hard Rock Entertainment World complex will include two hotels with over a thousand rooms, a large shopping area, along with entertainment facilities, and the casino. The casino could have as many as 1,200 slot machines and 100 table games making it one of the largest casinos in Europe. The company is reportedly planning to invest as much as €2 billion into the scheme.