The president of the Generalitat, Pere Aragonès, is determined to exhaust the legislature and have the elections be held when appropriate, in February 2025. He would be the first president to achieve this in 15 years, but Aragonès has important issues on the table that erode the final stretch of his mandate. The results in education, of the Pisa report, the health situation, the poor implementation of renewable energy and, above all, the budgets and the drought, may leave a bad memory of the management of the ERC Government, in addition to the future of the amnesty, and ruin the president’s plans.
Drought and climate change were precisely the topic of a monographic debate yesterday in Parliament, in which the opposition groups once again suspended the Government’s work in these matters, although they showed their differences regarding the solutions to be applied.
On the one hand, PSC and Junts denounced the failure to comply with the investments approved almost a year ago in the law of extraordinary and urgent measures to confront the drought, as well as the delays that make Catalonia trail behind Spain in the implementation of renewables. . But both parties reached out to Aragonès to “help.”
And on the other hand, the commons and the CUP put their eye on the need to extend to tourism the water restrictions that sectors such as agri-food and industry already suffer, and demanded that projects in their opinion not very ecological, such as the expansion of the El Prat airport, the construction of high-capacity roads such as the B-40, or the implementation of the Hard Rock in Tarragona.
Aragonès denied the major. He attributed the situation to the “misunderstood austerity” of other governments and the lack of investments and recalled the debt of 1.5 billion that the Catalan Water Agency (ACA) had. “Today we are paying for the decisions of the past. If something cannot be attributed to this Government, it is the lack of foresight and neglect with the drought, on the contrary. We have acted since the first weeks of the legislature. Making decisions, unraveling projects and investments. If we had not done so, we would have had water restrictions for a year,” he said. But he also admitted that “if it doesn’t rain, complex months will come.”
Given this panorama, 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 in five years and that “add to all the efforts and resources executed,” among which aid to the countryside stood out.
The Minister of Climate Action, David Mascort, reinforced the president’s outline with data. “We have worked in a planned and surgical manner. We have gotten ahead of ourselves,” he stated. Thus, he highlighted that the Generalitat will invest a total of 2,400 million until 2027 to guarantee supply and 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), although at the moment only regenerates half (205-210 hm3).
In turn, the leader of the opposition, Salvador Illa, demanded “more humility” from the Government. “If they have done it so well, why are we where we are?” he questioned. “Because the water comes from Sagunto…”, he continued, in reference to the transportation of water by boat that is planned from the Valencian Community.
The PSC leader demanded that the Executive and the ACA “get their act together once and for all,” and regretted that “Catalonia is not prepared to the level that would be necessary.” For this he blamed the successive governments of Mas, Torra, Puigdemont and Aragonès. “The result of 10 years of processes 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 confront the drought, and “abandon confrontation between administrations and promote 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 to “not confront sectors” or “destroy the productive fabric” of Catalonia. A demand that Ciudadanos, PP and Vox shared, but that 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 paying for the construction of large projects even though they know that they are “absolute nonsense” because “they do not dare to say no to the lobbies.” and to other political forces.” Among these projects they mentioned the expansion of the airport, the Winter Games, the B-40, and, above all, the Hard Rock, which blocks the approval of the new Catalan budgets.
In this regard, the Government insisted yesterday that the agreement for the new accounts could be a reality “in the coming days” and that the recreational project is not “a stumbling block.” But the PSC continues to demand that the president comply with the 2023 agreement, which requires him to approve the urban plan, while the commons, its other budget partner, put the Hard Rock as a red line. In any case, the Executive assures that it does not contemplate an electoral advance even if the 2024 budgets are not approved: “The legislature will run out.”
