The effects of the climate emergency (Doñana desiccation, drought…) have broken into Spanish political life abruptly, although for many years scientists have been warning about the vulnerability of large Spanish territories to climate change.
Doñana has opened Pandora’s box, because she synthesizes the contradictions that exist between the passions unleashed by water and the veneration generated by a mythical space whose conservation depends on water resources.
In Spain there are other Doñanas of unequal intensity. The complaint to the TC of the Valencian Community against the Tagus hydrological plan (which sets the ecological flow of this river and will reduce its transfers to the southeast of Spain) or the frustrated water pact in Catalonia show that the water wars and solidarity are going happening in cyclical periods of alternating stress.
The drought brings new challenges, such as the traumatic situation of the irrigators of the Canal d’Urgell (Segre), who cut off the irrigation, and are forced to eliminate the fruits and give up the harvest so that the stressed trees can survive in the future and thirsty.
The municipal and regional elections will make it possible to measure the footprint of the Greta generation, the degree of demand by young people for greater climate action or the popular judgment that the response to heat waves deserves.
The role of the private car in the city, air pollution, the definition of low-emission urban areas, green spaces and superblocks will be issues on the table in local elections. And, in the same way, the rapid implementation of wind farms raises the voices of those who want a clean and participatory energy model.
But all these looks will be reflected in the mirror of the dry lagoons of Doñana, where the two great actors (PSOE and PP) have entered into a loop and have even dragged the respective political families, the popular and social democrats in the European Parliament, including the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen.
However, the debates on the drought threaten to become a vicious circle if a previous premise is not accepted, which is not political, but physical: and that is that now it is a question of assuming the limits imposed by the availability of water. Electoral campaigns are lavish in promises of all kinds (including the idea of ​​transferring water that does not exist, as given in the PP and Vox proposal on Doñana); but the pre-election agitation will also have to adapt to climate change, especially when this conditions hydrological plans with dwindling resources.
But despite the obvious climate crisis, the mantra of water for all still endures. For this reason, in this contest two opposing models are confronted. On the one hand, the historical and political inertia in Andalusia continues to emphasize continuing to offer water to the agricultural industry (even closing our eyes to the hundreds of illegal wells), as if it were an infinite good, and on the other side are the defenders of the new culture of water (saving, efficiency, reuse, stopping the demand for unsustainable irrigation…), convinced that water is no longer just the property of irrigators.
It is key to remember that it was the WWF organization that denounced the illegal extraction of water, started the conviction of the Court of Justice of the EU against Spain (June 2021) for the overexploitation of the Doñana aquifer and has activated this tsunami that travels from Huelva to Lithuania passing through Brussels.
The court ruling obliges the European Commission to be the guarantor of community environmental law and guardian of the protection measures required to save the wetland and put an end to the law of the far west in the area of ​​Doñana.
Encouraged by Vox in its eagerness to dispute the political space of certain farmers, the PP has presented a proposal to legitimize illegal irrigation in the area of ​​Doñana blinded by an untimely calculation in its assault on the Huelva Provincial Council.
His plan comes when the national park is in a “critical” situation and ignoring that the priority response is to comply with the European ruling that requires an end to this overexploitation to prevent the infringement file (which is still open) from giving rise to a painful fine to Spain.
Although moved by the fear of suffering this sanction (if the PP and Vox bill advances), the PSOE leadership appears, despite everything, comfortable in the dialectical battle with the Junta. Thus, he draws a PP cornered by Europe and a denier of the climate crisis; and the noise of politics is removed from Madrid, taking Ayuso away from a stellar role.
The PSOE, during years of management in Andalusia, allowed the problem to rot (as shown by the lack of troops in the Guadalquivir Confederation to control illegal wells). Now, the state leadership shows its turn before the Andalusian PSOE and assumes for the first time that it is necessary to put a stop to new irrigation in the area.
Minister Teresa Ribera rejects the dialogue with the Junta, if the bill processed in the Andalusian Parliament is not withdrawn, since “illegal proposals are not negotiated”; but she knows that she will have to speak if she wants to reconvert the Doñana region with a comprehensive plan beyond the framework of actions that she has implemented under the jurisdiction of the State in water matters.
The agreement is also pending in Catalonia, where the Government’s drought decree obliges municipalities to apply an emergency plan, with the threat of heavy sanctions if they exceed the fixed amounts of water. Many municipalities have obsolete supply networks (leaks through a tube); but the socialists do not want to be pointed out as wasteful. And less with an election in sight.
At this point, fighting the drought requires a better distribution of water and saving, especially in Catalonia and Andalusia to delay possible restrictions for essential domestic uses, while waiting for the prayers in churches to give results. President Pere Aragonès proposes that the central government co-finance the modernization of the Canal d’Urgell (under the tutelage of the Ebro Confederation).
The irrigators already know what the limits are when the planning arrives late.