The leader of the opposition in Catalonia, Salvador Illa, continues with his strategy of reaching out to the Government of Pere Aragonès. Aware of the parliamentary arithmetic and the meager support that the ERC Executive has in Parliament, the first secretary of the PSC has sent a letter to the president in which he offers to agree on one of the issues that most concern the socialist, the drought that plagues Catalonia. In this way, the socialist wants to continue conditioning the Government’s action in this matter, after agreeing on the Generalitat’s budget for this year.
In the letter, Illa addresses Aragonès to alert him that the drought problem in Catalonia “is serious and worrying” and calls for a “collaboration policy” between the Generalitat, city councils, supply companies and citizens, something that in his opinion the Government is not carrying out. The Socialists put as proof of this lack of collaboration the decree approved at the end of February by the Consell Executiu, which extends the water restrictions to six million citizens of 224 municipalities in 15 different regions.
The decree imposes restrictions on water for agricultural, industrial, recreational uses and the prohibition of irrigation of green areas, both public and private, and imposes sanctions of up to 150,000 euros on non-compliant municipalities. This chapter is what the Socialists criticize the most, who consider that we are facing “a sanctions decree, instead of an investment decree.”
In addition, Illa criticizes in the letter to the president that, given Aragonès’ recent announcement to convene a summit of parties to deal with the emergency, “it would have been better to convene this summit before the Government approved the decree law”, especially “taking taking into account the parliamentary support that the Catalan Executive has,” conclude socialist sources.
The validation of this decree will be taken to the next plenary session of the Catalan Chamber, scheduled for next week, where ERC should seek support if it wants to move it forward. It remains to be seen when the summit promised by Aragonès will be called, which in any case will not take place this week because the president is still traveling through Latin America and will not return to Catalonia until the beginning of next week.
Illa also demands that Aragonès “diligence in the execution” of the investments in water matters that were agreed with the PSC in the framework of this year’s budgets. Investments that, according to the socialists, represent 760 million euros. In this sense, the opposition leader justifies his demand for “careful monitoring” of such executions “given the background of an inexplicable low execution, of 20.79%, of the investments of the Catalan Water Agency during the financial year 2022 budget”, he reproaches.
Not everything is criticized by Illa, who takes advantage of the letter to send the president some of the work and proposals that the PSC has made in this legislature regarding water. Thus, the leader attaches five documents with proposals to fight against the drought, the modernization of irrigation, and the implementation of renewable energy for irrigation communities and incentives to save water.
Like Illa, the socialist deputy responsible for the ecological transition area of ??the parliamentary group, Silvia Paneque, has sent a letter to the Minister of Climate Action, Food and Rural Agenda, Teresa Jordà, in the same sense.
