Both face an attempt to renew their mandate for the third time in just two months and both handle polls that do not allow them to fall into excess confidence. In these circumstances, firmness in defending the interests of their respective territories weighs more than any party strategy. Ximo Puig and Emiliano García-Page, presidents of the Valencian Community and Castilla-La Mancha, have a lot at stake on the pulse.
Each one in his own way -Puig diplomatic and measured, García-Page vehement and defiant- both collide head-on on an issue that, like the map of the hydrographic basins, affects both of them, but is beyond their competence; the limits to the flow of water to be transferred from the Tagus basin to the Segura basin.
Puig has felt betrayed by the Ministry of Ecological Transition. They offered him a pact in the National Water Council that included an additional provision in the decree of the Hydrological Plan that would later be approved that, in short, linked the progressive increase in the ecological flow (the minimum from which the tap of the transfer should be closed) to a monitoring commission that will assess the state of the river.
That that pact did not seem sufficient to the government of Murcia and the Valencian PP entered into Puig’s calculations. He was confident, however, that it would be enough to obtain a truce from the irrigators, when it arrived accompanied by a powerful investment plan in the area.
Then came the announcement of the price increase on desalinated water, as the existing subsidy lapsed, which caused a new outcry of protest among farmers and had to be corrected. And between protest and protest, the submission to the Council of State of a draft that suppressed the additional provision and made the progressive increase in the flow of the Tagus to be protected automatic; a torpedo in the waterline of the strategy designed in the Consell, four months before the elections. Also applauded, with undisguised enthusiasm, by the president and the Castilian-La Mancha government.
Thus, aware of the electoral impact that the matter has in the Vega Baja and Vinalopó regions, especially in the former, the head of the Valencian government has no alternative but to remain firm in the response to Teresa Ribera’s ministry. And it does so by the only possible way, that the courts, the Supreme in this case, force to rectify at least partially the aspects of the Royal Decree that are most harmful to the Segura basin.
What the proposed resource intends is that, although the first step of the ecological flow is already applied, which raises the minimum of cubic hectometres per second of the flow to 7, the application of the following ones, in later years, is paralyzed. The Generalitat’s lawyers argue that the Ministry’s decision is “arbitrary” and “is not based on technical criteria.”
Despite Puig’s attempts to maintain a conciliatory tone, advocating consensus and accusing the PP of seeking conflict for electoral interest, the truth is that the reaction of García-Page and his government, announcing that they will appear before the Supreme Court in defending his right and questioning the Valencian initiative, does not help him: “What we are not going to tolerate is that, after having been generous, they try to stop the steps that we have just achieved”, declared the ‘baron’ from La Mancha.
“If in the Spanish Levante (in reference to the Valencian Community, Murcia and Almería) they think that they can reverse an agreement so respectful of the Supreme Court rulings, with the European directives and with climate change”, the Board will be forced to “to demand 100% of what the courts have established,” said García-Page.
Yesterday, when questioned by the media, Puig was forced to respond. And he did so by remarking that the Valencian government has its “legitimate right” to appeal the decree that reviews the Tagus Hydrological Plan and, in relation to García-Page’s criticisms, that he does not understand that “nobody feels attacked”. Puig insists that he is not going to “get into water wars that the only thing they produce is mud, restlessness and uncertainty.”
But it ensures that “everyone has the right to go to court and exercise political claims within the framework of their responsibility.” “Beyond trying to make this an asset for electoral discussion, what we have to do is look for solutions and it is within this framework that we are in,” stressed the ‘president’, before adding, regarding the statements of Emiliano García-Page: “I don’t have to say anything about anyone because I have never said it, because we have never been in that space of confrontation in which some feel very comfortable”.
“We do not work counteracting anyone, we act based on the general interest of the Valencian Community. There is no more, there is no other way, we do not understand that nobody feels attacked by what is the determination to defend the interest of the Valencian Community” Puig added. In his opinion, “extrasizing this issue obeys other interests, but not the interests of defending water,” he lamented.
Regarding the fact that García-Page has stated that he will harden his position in this matter, Ximo Puig assures that he does not know “what hardening the position means” and insisted that “the Generalitat has a legitimate right to file an appeal against a party (of the plan) who understands that it is not convenient for Valencian interests”. In addition, he has indicated that the Valencian executive “on 42 occasions” has positioned itself “against issues that have affected the transfer.”
The ‘president’ asked that there be no “extra dimension or extraordinary speaker regarding this issue.” “We will defend from the legitimacy and with a spirit open to dialogue as we have always done, without trying in any way to create useless confrontations. If someone is in the space of confrontation, he is not ours,” he concluded.
Meanwhile, the president of Castilla-La Mancha stressed that, for the first time in many years, his government is going to court in this case, “not to appeal decisions, but to defend decisions that are among the first to be in the direction of the Tagus river itself”.
“I don’t know if it is convenient for human beings, and even less for human beings, governments, to change the mouths of rivers,” said the Castilian-La Mancha president, before adding that rivers “go to the sea where nature said , and trying to change this logic does not go with climate change or with the times”.
