Social and economic sectors have expressed their fear that the upcoming regional elections on May 12 and the pre- and post-electoral periods coincide with an even more critical phase of the drought and that this calendar will reduce the effectiveness of the actions that must be taken due to a lack of political leadership. The fear they convey is that, with an eye on the elections, the priority that the fight against drought should continue to have will be postponed.
“The Government must not ignore the emergency caused by the drought,” summarizes Carles Mas, director of the economy and business area at Pimec. Mas maintains that it is essential to avoid the temptation for political leaders to “relax” conditioned by the feeling that the stage is ending or that they will not continue in their positions after the elections. In that climate, the politician’s predisposition would be to ignore complex decisions, he argues. If major agreements have to be made, these will be in the hands of a provisional government, often synonymous with paralysis, and in a possibly more acute phase of the emergency.
However, despite all these uncertainties, details of the operation (contracting of shipping companies) to transport water in ships from the Sagunt desalination plant to Barcelona must be finalized, agreed with the Ministry for the Ecological Transition. Furthermore, the provisional Government will not be able to introduce substantial modifications in the Special Drought Plan, which marks the actions according to the level of the emergency, if necessary, since such changes require the intervention of the Parliament, since the Executive is only empowered to make changes minors.
Carles Mas urges the current Government to specify resolutions already adopted, such as those referring to the regulations that should govern the operation of private desalination plants. In addition, he is waiting for the green light to be given to the claims to be able to irrigate public gardens with groundwater or regenerated water, a prerogative that is now only reserved for subsistence irrigation of trees in public gardens. “The next Government will not have a hundred days of grace. There are too many things pending,” says the Pimec representative.
PSC MP Sílvia Paneque puts it another way: “The elections come at a critical time, and clear political leadership is needed for the drought response to be effective in the coming weeks and months.”
The Minister of Climate Action, David Mascort, has admitted that the extension of the Generalitat’s budget for 2024 will prevent the execution of some works scheduled to deal with the drought and will make their processing more complex, although it has not been fully specified what those would be. games. The Department of Economy is now working on these adjustments.
The extension of the budgets will not affect the Tordera II desalination plant project in Blanes, which must be ready in 2028, since the investment is borne by the central administration. Nor will it affect the 120 million euros of subsidy promised to city councils to modernize and prevent water leaks in their networks, although the resolution of aid requests continues to be delayed “because the emergency route has not been used,” according to Salvador Sedó, from Foment. Nor will the modernization of the Cardedeu (Ter) water treatment plant be affected, which has a loan from the ACA treasury.
On the other hand, cuts are planned in other planned subsidies, such as those aimed at improving the efficiency of water management for industry and tourism. Nor will all the promised irrigation modernization investments be carried out. “We will do everything we have committed to until now, but we will not be able to promote new investments,” said Minister David Mascort. And regarding investments for water regeneration or creation of new wells, the councilor has acknowledged that “it will be more difficult to carry them out with the utmost diligence.”
Since the law accompanying fiscal measures is also stranded, the Government will not be able to carry out the plan (agreed upon with the Catalan Association of Municipalities) to “make the sanctioning regime more flexible” for municipalities that fail to comply with the limits of water allocations. And as for the compensations still pending for the agricultural sector, it remains to be seen if they can be made effective through budget modifications.
As a backdrop, criticism continues to grow over the insufficient investments made by the ACA, whose growing cash surpluses contrast with the necessary works. According to the latest data, the ACA accumulated a “remainder” (investments pending execution) worth 616 million euros until December 31, 2023, of which 192.5 million did not have a finalized commitment. “It is something that must be resolved urgently in the next term,” says Mas.
