The water shortage in Catalonia is on the way to becoming the Government’s biggest headache for the rest of the legislature, even more so if the 30 months without regular rain continue. The extent of the crisis can be so remarkable that the Catalan Executive and the parties do not hesitate to equate the situation to that caused by covid.
Like the pandemic, the drought is a supervening factor capable of highlighting years of public management, which leaves little room to react in time. If, no matter how much the fingers are crossed, the rains do not remedy it, the answer will require exceptional, harsh, unpopular measures, which will affect a large part of the population, which is why it seems essential to have a global political consensus. The president will try to implement it at the party summit called for March 31, but the opposition has criticized his first steps, the Government’s “unilateral” approval of the emergency decree against the drought, which ” transfers the responsibility to the municipalities” and “threatens them with sanctions”, according to their regret.
In addition, Junts and the CUP criticize that this summit “will be nothing more than a photo”. “Faced with such an extreme situation, as was the case with covid, it is necessary to constantly meet with experts”, they point out.
No one forgets the political attrition that the drought of 2008 entailed for the tripartite, but Aragonès’ search for consensus comes up against a pre-electoral context before the municipal elections in May in which party interests are boiling that can slow down the eagerness The president warned on Wednesday: “Don’t make the drought a partisan battle in the run-up to the elections.”
The current drought is severe. The internal basins, those managed by the Catalan Water Agency (ACA), are at a quarter of their capacity, up to 224 municipalities in Catalonia are in a phase of exceptionality and sixty localities depend on summer of tankers to provide drinking water.
Some are forced to spend their own resources on these transports that dry up municipal budgets, and others, especially those on the coast, fear the arrival of summer, when in many cases their population triples and, therefore, the water demand
The outlook, therefore, is not encouraging, and ERC are aware that poor management of the measures can undermine any possibility of repeating at the Palau de la Generalitat. “The Government is looking for complicity to save face”, agreed some of the parties consulted, a perception they see reinforced by the convening of the water summit. “Socialization of guilt”, Cs deputy Marina Bravo called it.
The Government assures that it has been acting for months. “They are waking up now, but we have been managing the situation for many months, and the data backs us up”, they point out from the Generalitat. They add that in the previous drought, that of 2008, with 16 months of abnormal rainfall, the water reserves were at 20%, and today they are at 27% with 30 months of scarce rainfall. The Drought Plan was activated in October 2021. But the opposition, and even from the town councils, points to the low investment execution of the ACA. According to his report, in December 2022 it was 34%, while the Generalitat states that the real investment reaches 71%.
The general criticism of the Executive of Aragonès is for the forms and for the substance. In the forms, for having approved, “without consultation and without consensus”, a decree that imposes restrictions on six million inhabitants and includes a regime of sanctions. In this perception they agree from the local level, in which mayors of municipalities of various political color and size point out “the basic attitude of the Government” with a decree in which “there is no economic proposal” to help them undertake investments or alleviate the situation.
The PSC, whose leader, Salvador Illa, was in charge of managing the pandemic as Minister of Health, warns that “an emergency can only be solved with money”. The parties are aware, as in the pandemic, that the person responsible is to go to one, which is why the opposition is ready to give consensus a chance. The parliamentary weakness of the Government is validated by the need of the opposition parties not to be singled out if they deviate from a necessary consensus.
In Palau, they urge the socialists that, “just like with covid, stop partisanship and work responsibly for the good of everyone”. But the PSC remembers that competence in matters of drought belongs to the Generalitat and that the degree of partisanship “will depend on whether the Government rectifies” its first steps, applies with “dialogue and consensus” and puts investments on the table
