Drought will be one of the issues that will monopolize political news in Catalonia from now on. If it does not rain with the necessary intensity to alleviate the forecasts that portend water restrictions this summer even in the Barcelona metropolitan area, it could become a great headache for the Government and a reason for reprimand from the opposition. The steps taken so far by Pere Aragonès’ Executive have provoked widespread criticism from the parties, which are demanding a “bump in the helm” in the management of the crisis in order to agree on specific measures, especially investments and aid to the most affected, instead of emphasizing sanctions in case of non-compliance.
To date, the Government has approved a decree with water restrictions that affect 224 municipalities (6 million inhabitants), which includes a penalty regime for municipalities that fail to comply with them, but this Friday a party summit will take place at the Palau of the Generalitat from which the possibility of agreeing on the measures to be adopted will be explored. From this meeting, the modification of the Government decree should arise with the contributions of the parties, which the Parliament must approve shortly, after being processed as a bill.
Before the appointment, the opposition has agreed to launch a notice to the president on Monday about his “little dialogue” attitude on this matter. The first secretary of the PSC, Salvador Illa, has insisted on the need for the Government to take advantage of Friday’s summit to “reorient” Catalan politics. It would be, the socialist has claimed, that Aragonès gives “a swerve” to the attitude shown up to now, having not agreed on the measures adopted by decree with the opposition parties.
Illa has criticized the forms of the Government, having learned through the media of the approval of the decree of restrictions, and has recalled the parliamentary weakness that Aragonès has. In his opinion, the “logical” thing would have been to convene the summit before approving the decree, in order to ensure parliamentary support, instead of approving a decree that will be modified.
Despite everything, the socialist assures that he will go to the summit on Friday with a “willingness to collaborate” and “good predisposition”, but he has once again criticized that the Catalan Executive has decided that the municipalities “pay the price” through the sanctions regime of the decree. “We have to move from a control policy to one of collaboration; we are going wrong on that path,” he warned.
The criticism of the Socialists abounds in the attitude of the ERC Executive, which “seems not to be aware of the support it has”, the Socialists recriminate. An attitude that extends to other issues, such as the decision to restructure the internal functioning of the Mossos d’Esquadra, also by decree. For this reason, in the PSC they consider that the summit should serve for Aragonès to “rectify the course” he is taking, especially in view of the fact that his projects (the clarity agreement, the trip through Latin America or the complaint about espionage) they are not “getting the echo they expected”.
Junts per Catalunya has also alluded to the drought to criticize the drift of Aragonès. At a press conference this Monday, spokesperson Josep Rius criticized the management of the Minister for Climate Action, Food and Rural Agenda, Teresa Jordà, as “slow, erratic and not very accurate” and that “she seems to trust everything to the rain”. The criticism is specific to the “error” of not having agreed on the drought decree by calling a summit for this Friday and it extends to the way the Government is acting.
“We have a government touched, discredited, without a clear majority in Parliament to carry out its projects”, Rius pointed out, for whom this “is a Government that only endures by the will to cling to power, but that has neither neither a project nor a majority to continue governing”. other issues.
The post-convergents demand “concrete measures” to mitigate the drought crisis such as strengthening the desalination plants by expanding the one in Tordera and building a new one in Foix; the reuse of gray water in homes; water treatment plants and other backward infrastructures of Aigües Ter-Llobregat (ATL); increase the use in the lower Besòs, and improve the supply in small and medium-sized municipalities with “agile and realistic” aid.
The commons are less critical, but they have wanted to give the Government a call to attention in the face of the inconsistency they see in the approval of exceptional measures due to the drought and keeping alive projects that will mean a greater demand for water, such as the Hard Rock. Those of Jéssica Albiacha will go to the summit to demand “ecological planning” from the president in the face of the drought and to act in the long term.
The spokesman Joan Mena has criticized that the Government decree focused on water collection and on transferring responsibility to the city councils, and warned that “nothing is solved with macro-projects, nor by doing the rain dance, nor by going to Montserrat”. For the commons, the summit should serve to prepare Catalonia for the future, instead of “dedicating itself to complying with the minimum”, as they believe the Catalan Executive is doing.
