Pessimism has settled in Parliament around the political unity on measures against drought. The consensus pursued by the three big parties –PSC, ERC and Junts– could fail again. The reason is no longer the sanctioning regime on the municipalities, raised by the Government in its decree, but the investments in infrastructures to improve the network of use and water supply.
The Junts bill with urgent measures to fight against the lack of water that is being debated and voted on today in the Catalan Chamber could go ahead without, again, a global agreement, from the three parties, as a consequence of their differences on investments.
The fact is that, in the last few hours, the debate has focused on this folder. The three parties have presented amendments to the post-convergent norm detailing what, in their opinion, should be the infrastructures that the Catalan Executive should undertake in the short or medium term. Although there are coincidences between the three proposals, at first glance differences are observed in the number of proposed infrastructures, the financial resources to allocate and the deadlines to execute them, with the Socialists being the most demanding and the Republicans the most lax. Junts also setting the investment plan and financial aid as a “red line”.
If the distance remains in this matter, today the Parliament will only be able to celebrate an agreement between the three groups regarding the sanctioning regime. The three groups agree to waive possible fines as long as the municipalities show an express willingness to face the problems in the local network, present their respective anti-drought plans and not violate the restrictions. But in the best of cases, there will only be a partial agreement – ​​without ERC – on the investments.
In general, the three agree on the need to undertake infrastructure such as the expansion of the Tordera desalination plant or the Besòs water treatment plant, but the PSC is stricter on deadlines. They also agree on the project for the Foix desalination plant, on the doubling of the artery for the regeneration of the Besòs water, on adapting and optimizing the water treatment plants of the Llobregat and Ter rivers, but ERC does not see a priority to commit investments for the Pozos de Las Estrellas (Sant Feliu de Llobregat), for the Sant Joan Despà water treatment plant, nor guarantee the treatment of groundwater, as well as other measures that the PSC defends alone, such as the transfer of wastewater from the Besòs to Llobregat basin, or expand the El Prat regenerator. Thus, the Socialists see an agreement in this area as “very complicated”. They allege that their measures are part of the strategic projects (Perte) for the water cycle approved by the Government and that they would contribute 10,000 liters per second of additional flow in the water cycle of Catalonia (860 million liters per day).
In addition, in the PSC they denounce that the Republicans do not even have investments already agreed upon in this year’s budget agreement and that from their amendments “it is distilled” that the infrastructures would go to the account of the 2024 budgets.
Despite the socialist pessimism and the prudence of Junts, who was pursuing “a powerful photo” of three that would reflect what President Pere Aragonès could not achieve at the failed water summit a month ago, the Government assured yesterday that the investments ” they should not be a problem” and that “things are not going badly or are stuck”, to the point that “it could end well”.
