The Andalusian PSOE and WWF have denounced that the Andalusian Executive has recovered, through the decree-law of administrative simplification, the initiative to declare forest lands in the Northern Crown of Doñana as arable. This measure was already contemplated in the controversial bill of the PP-A and VOx and was discarded after the agreement reached between the Board and the Government at the end of last year.
WWF has denounced that the Andalusian Government, with its new administrative simplification decree, is preparing to reduce the environmental protection of the forest areas of Doñana and “opens the door to amnesty” for illegal farmers who occupy these lands.
The organization, through a statement, has indicated that “with the excuse of adapting Andalusian regulations to the state regulations, this decree-law, in a clear example of arbitrariness, applies retroactivity to it, without technical justification or participation. public”.
With the modification of this rule, the agricultural lands located in the Doñana area that, today, are considered forestry and that have been illegally transformed from short-shift forestry to agricultural, “will be amnestied and the land will be considered agricultural instead of being restored, being able to continue developing its activity until today considered illegal,” adds this organization.
The PSOE-A has demanded that the simplification decree of the Junta de Andalucía be withdrawn and presented as a bill in order to improve a rule that, at this time, makes the agreement reached with the Government “fly through the air”. of Spain on Doñana and opens the door to privatization and speculator processes.
The deputy spokesperson of the PSOE-A and secretary of Political Communication, Josele Aguilar, has warned that it is “absolutely unacceptable” that this procedure is carried out as a decree despite the fact that its urgency is not justified.
“It is another cacicada of Moreno Bonilla, who also uses it as an omnibus decree in the Milei style, introducing rules that have nothing to do with administrative simplification,” he noted.
Aguilar has considered that the “most flagrant and unacceptable” case is that he once again puts the Doñana bill through the “back door”, literally copying its content in the new decree, despite the fact that Moreno had agreed with the Government of Spain its withdrawal.
This represents “an act of impudence and disloyalty towards the Government of Spain”, according to the socialist parliamentarian, who does not understand why Moreno once again places Doñana in the “eye of the hurricane” including “undercover” the possibility of transforming the farms. from forestry to agricultural.
Given the situation that has occurred, the third vice president and minister for the Ecological Transition, Teresa Ribera, has suspended the meetings on Doñana scheduled for tomorrow with mayors of the area, technical teams and organizations, after the new controversy over an alleged declaration of forest lands as cultivable crops in the administrative simplification decree of the Junta de Andalucía.
This afternoon, Ribera will inform the president of the Andalusian Government, Juanma Moreno, of the suspension of this event, in which the Secretary of State for the Environment, Hugo Morán, was scheduled to meet with the mayors of the Doñana area.
The meeting was part of the framework agreement reached between the central government and the Junta in November on Doñana. Given the measures included in the recent simplification decree, the minister chooses to suspend them.
“I want to understand what has happened. I do not feel in a position to know what we have in front of us and I deeply regret it,” said the minister.
The Ministry for the Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge (Miteco) had called for this Tuesday the 14 municipalities in the area of ??influence of Doñana to address the distribution of funds contemplated for them by the framework agreement reached between the central government and the Board of Andalusia in November.
The minister made these statements after meeting this Monday in Madrid with the president of the Valencian Generalitat, Carlos Mazón, to discuss the status of the Tajo-Segura transfer given that the review of the exploitation rules regarding the volume of water must be concluded this month. transferable depending on the water impounded in the Alto Tajo and the hydrological scenario.
The controversy has arisen after the PSOE-A complaint that the Andalusian Government has recovered the initiative to declare forest lands in the Northern Crown of Doñana as arable, a measure that contemplated the controversial bill discarded after the agreement reached between the Board and the government.
The Andalusian Government has said that it is “flatly false” that it wants to recover that bill in this decree and has defended that it is limited to adapting the Andalusian forestry law to the state law and that “at no time is it talked about irrigation or Doñana.” .
However, the minister has admitted that she is concerned about what she has seen and that she has “found it” published in the Official Gazette of the Government of Andalusia “by surprise.” She explained that the Government had “no idea” that a modification of this type was being made, so it must be taken “with great caution.”
“I want to understand what has happened. I do not feel in a position to know what we have in front of us and I deeply regret it,” said the minister.
He added that it is “very difficult” to work to reduce the pressures on Doñana, to dedicate a “very notable” volume of resources, to seek consensus with all those involved and to find that, “in the face” of that, “from one day to the next a retroactive legalization of agricultural uses on forest land”.
According to WWF, thanks to article 242 of this decree-law, the lands that currently have an open sanctioning file could request that it be archived and avoid the sanction, since they would be considered agricultural.
In this way, the Junta de Andalucía substantially modifies its forestry law through a decree-law whose necessity and urgency is “totally questionable.” And it does so “thus avoiding public participation and the relevant technical reports, so the number of forest hectares that will be affected, their current state, and their importance for Doñana are completely unknown at this time.”
This decree-law, they have pointed out, will result in “a decrease in the protected forest land of Doñana” and represents “a full-fledged amnesty for the transformations that occurred in certain forest lands that were illegally converted into agricultural lands,” says WWF.
Likewise, it constitutes “the materialization through the decree-law of some of the commitments included in the proposed Doñana irrigation law promoted by the PP-A, which was intended to grant an amnesty to the illegal farmers of Doñana, which has not yet been officially withdrawn from the Parliament of Andalusia, and which already included this same modification”.
“We consider that this new maneuver to amnesty a large part of the illegal farmers of Doñana represents a direct attack on the Doñana Pact signed last November between the Government and the Junta of Andalusia” and that with it “the credibility of the Doñana Pact that had been presented to the European Commission”.
In fact, “if the Andalusian Government maintains the retroactivity of this rule, the illegals will have won the fight against the rule of law in Doñana and the Doñana Pact will not make sense,” they concluded.
The secretary of Political Communication and deputy spokesperson for the regional executive commission of the PSOE-A, Josele Aguilar, has considered that the new administrative simplification decree approved by the PP-A Government is “cannon fodder for a possible appeal to the Constitutional Court “(TC), and has urged the Board to withdraw it two days before it is submitted to debate for its validation or repeal in the Plenary Session of the Andalusian Parliament, European Press report.
Aguilar has thus charged against the “cacicada” that, in his opinion, the Government of Juanma Moreno has carried out by “using” the formula of the decree law “to approve a norm of this nature, in which in no way is the extraordinary and urgent need that is the qualifying requirement for a decree law”, and in which “all types of regulations that have nothing to do with administrative simplification are included.
In this sense, he considers it “unacceptable” to have included in this decree law the Doñana bill that had to be withdrawn, as had been agreed with the Government of Spain. “It is included through the back door, undercover,” as the socialist spokesperson continued to denounce.
Along these lines, Josele Aguilar has denounced that “what appears in the Vox and PP-A bill is literally copied” for the regularization of irrigation in the area around the Doñana Park in the aforementioned simplification decree-law. “It is a literal copy of what Mr. Moreno Bonilla had promised to withdraw,” according to the socialist representative, who wondered “why” the president of the Board “is again putting Doñana in the eye of the hurricane.” and the prestige” of said natural space.
Josele Aguilar has also wondered why Juanma Moreno “puts at risk the agreement reached with the Government of Spain” regarding Doñana and “blows up the bridges again in this way”, acting in a manner “so irresponsible and disloyal to the institutions and with the Government of Spain”, as has been explained.
After maintaining that the “Andalusian way” that Moreno presumes is “the way of lies, traps and deception”, the representative of the PSOE-A has defended that it is “absolutely necessary” that the “immediate withdrawal” be agreed. ” of the decree, and has stressed that “there is no justification” that it “includes again the transformation of forestry farms into agricultural ones, as intended.”
