Seville, (EFE).- The PP and Vox, with the endorsement of the Andalusian Junta, have given the green light in Parliament to the processing of the bill that expands irrigation in the northern crown of the Doñana Park. And all this despite threats from the EU to fine Spain if more irrigation is legalized and opposition from the central government.
46 days before the municipal elections, the PP and Vox groups have supported that it be processed by emergency means. A law that has the direct rejection of the rest of the opposition (PSOE-A, Por Andalucía and Adelante Andalucía). It could be approved by the plenary session of Parliament in mid-May. All in the shortest of scenarios or in the middle of July.
The bill recognizes some 800 hectares of the Huelva municipalities of Almonte, Bonares, Lucena del Puerto, Moguer and Rociana del Condado as agricultural. Something that is questioned by the European Commission, which threatens fines, and the central government, which will appeal to the Constitutional Court for “invasion” of powers if it is approved.
The Andalusian Government defends that, despite the expansion of irrigation, it will not authorize any extraction of water from the Doñana aquifer. Area depleted by illegal wells and drought, and that the irrigation right will be granted to new hectares through surface water that would arrive through the transfer of the Odiel-Tinto-Piedra demarcation that, according to the Board, has to undertake the State.
The rejection of irrigation in Doñana from the CHG
The president of the Guadalquivir Hydrographic Confederation (CHG), Joaquín Páez, this Wednesday accused the Junta de Andalucía of “lying” about the irrigation plan for the Doñana area. He states that he “has not presented a technical report” that supports the proposal that the Andalusian Parliament will debate this afternoon.
In statements to EFE, Páez has indicated that the president of the Board, Juanma Moreno, wants “everyone to look the other way.” Either “science, institutions, Europe and the European courts”. And “what is more worrying”, an agricultural sector “that has its hopes and sights set on the European markets.”
And all, in his opinion, because of the “electoral tacticism of Moreno.” He accuses him of “forgetting his so-called green revolution that he bragged about and the so-called water legislature.”
The president of the CHG recalled that Doñana has accumulated “eleven consecutive dry or very dry years” and has “three overexploited groundwater masses”. For this reason, the PP bill that will be debated this afternoon “is endangering the traceability of agricultural products from the Doñana environment.” Also the “environmental quality” of the same. EFE