The president of the Generalitat, Pere Aragonès, is determined to exhaust the legislature and make sure that the elections are held when it is due, in February 2025. He would be the first president to achieve this in 15 years, but Aragonès has weighty issues on the table that erode the final stretch of his mandate. The results in education, from the Pisa report; the health situation; the poor implementation of renewable energies and, above all, the budgets and the drought, may leave a bad memory of the management of the ERC Government, without taking into account the future of the amnesty, and put the president’s plans in jeopardy .
The drought and climate change were precisely the subject of a monographic debate yesterday in Parliament in which the opposition groups once again suspended the Government’s work on these matters, although they showed their differences regarding to the solutions to be applied.
On the one hand, the PSC and Junts denounced the non-compliance with the investments approved almost a year ago in the law on extraordinary and urgent measures to deal with the drought, and also the delays that make Catalonia behind Spain in the implementation of renewables. But both parties reached out to Aragonès to “help”.
And on the other hand, the communes and the CUP emphasized the need to extend to tourism the water restrictions that sectors such as the agri-food and industrial sectors are already suffering from, and demanded that projects be buried which they consider to be unecological, such as the expansion of El Prat airport, the construction of high-capacity roads such as the B-40 or the establishment of the Hard Rock in Tarragona.
Aragonés denied everything. He attributed the situation to the “misunderstood austerity” of other governments and the lack of investment, and recalled the debt of 1,500 million that the Catalan Water Agency (ACA) came to have. “Today we are paying for the decisions of the past. If something cannot be imputed to this Government, it is the lack of foresight and carelessness with the drought, on the contrary. We have acted since the first weeks of the legislature. Making decisions, derailing projects and investments. If we hadn’t done it, it would have been a year since we would have had water restrictions”, he assured. But he also admitted that “if it doesn’t rain, complex months will come”.
In view of this scenario, the president warned that “complex decisions” will have to be made. That is why he asked for support for budgets in which he has reserved 1,045 million euros to promote the responsible use of water, for irrigation, to adapt desalination plants, regeneration plants, supply networks and improve irrigation systems. Resources that will bear fruit five years from now and that “are added to all the efforts and resources implemented”, among which he highlighted aid to farming.
The Councilor for Climate Action, David Mascort, reinforced the president’s sketch with data. “We worked in a planned and surgical way. We have made progress”, he asserted. So, he emphasized that the Generalitat will invest a total of 2,400 million until 2027 to guarantee the supply and to face the drought and the climate emergency. In addition, he pointed out that 80 hm3 of water are now regenerated in Catalonia, compared to 20 hm3 in 2018, and that the measures of the 2030 plan will guarantee the regeneration of the total supply of the metropolitan region of Barcelona (400 hm3), all and that at the moment only half of it is regenerated (205-210 hm3).
In his turn to speak, the leader of the opposition, Salvador Illa, demanded “more humility” from the Government. “If they have done so well, why are we the way we are?” he questioned. “Because the water comes from Sagunto…”, he continued, with reference to the transport of water in ships that is planned from the Valencian Community.
The leader of the PSC demanded that the Executive and the ACA “put the batteries together at once”, and regretted that “Catalonia is not prepared at the level it should be”. He blamed the successive governments of Mas, Torra, Puigdemont and Aragonès. “The result of 10 years of process is that Catalonia is more dependent than ever on water, energy and investments”, he concluded.
On behalf of Junts, Albert Batet asked the Government for “an urgent change of course in governance” to face the drought, and abandon the confrontation between administrations and encourage collaboration. But he also criticized the PSC for its management in the previous drought, when José Montilla’s government left the ACA “ruined”.
In any case, socialists and post-convergents showed the Government their willingness to “provide solutions” in a new “country summit” – which they have been asking for weeks -, but they stressed the need “not to confront sectors” or “destroy the productive fabric” of Catalonia, a demand shared by Ciutadans, the PP and Vox, but which was attacked by the commons and the CUP.
The president of En Comú Podem, Jéssica Albiach, and the anti-capitalist spokesperson, Dani Cornellà, criticized Aragonès for subsidizing the construction of large projects, despite the fact that they know they are “absolute nonsense”, because “they do not dare to say not to lobbies and other political forces”. Among these projects, they cited the expansion of the airport, the Winter Games, the B-40, and, above all, the Hard Rock, which is blocking the approval of the new Catalan budgets.
Regarding this, the Government insisted yesterday that the agreement for the new accounts could be a reality “in the next few days” and that the recreational project is not “a cliff”. But the PSC continues to demand that the president fulfill the 2023 agreement , which forces him to approve the urban plan, while the commons, his other budget partner, put the Hard Rock as a red line. In any case, the Executive assures that it does not foresee an electoral advance even if the 2024 budgets are not approved: “The legislature will run out”.
