Madrid (EFE).- The Minister for the Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge, Teresa Ribera, has warned that she will denounce the Junta de Andalucía before the Constitutional Court (TC) if it does not withdraw the bill to expand irrigation in Doñana , which the European Commission considers contrary to the obligation to protect the wetland.
In a press conference this Monday at the Ministry for Ecological Transition (Miteco), the minister made these statements amid the controversy over the initiative to expand irrigation in the northern crown of Doñana presented by the PP and Vox.
The minister has asked the president of the Board, Juanma Moreno, to withdraw the text so that “common sense is imposed”, because they are not going to “negotiate illegalities: There is no room for amendments, only the full return of this law to the site from which it should never have come out, for the benefit of the Spaniards, which is the wastebasket”.
The Government reiterates Europe’s position on Doñana
If the Board goes ahead with its bill, Ribera has emphasized that it will go “to the Constitutional Court.”
Also, it would be necessary to think about the assumption that there were “strong and private” fines and how that coercive fine would be transferred, because “someone should pay it and the threat is real, true as it has left in writing and clearly in the meeting, the commissioner European”.
“This is not a debatable matter or subject to interpretation”, the minister stressed, referring to the position of the European Commission, and has demanded that the Junta de Andalucía stop calling for dialogue because “it is not possible to dialogue on the basis of the illegality”.
“Saving Doñana depends on everyone, but each one has their responsibility,” Ribera argued, to conclude with another request to the Moreno government: “Please stop allying with Vox and think again about European legality.”
The minister highlighted the water stress situation suffered by the Doñana Park, and stated that “where there is no water, where it is already involved in a hydrological plan for the Guadalquivir on which the Junta de Andalucía did not make the slightest comment or the less allegation, it is not possible to invent more water”.
“The water that we can provide ourselves with is already compromised for legal irrigators, for consumers and for the park itself,” he pointed out.
Brussels tells the Board that its law goes “in the opposite direction”
The European Commission charged today in a meeting with the Junta de Andalucía in Brussels against the draft law for irrigation in Doñana, which goes “in the opposite direction” to the obligation to protect the Natural Park and “could degrade the wetland”.
“The commissioner (for the Environment, Virginius Sinkevicius) has recalled that the Commission is deeply concerned because the proposed Andalusian legislation, if approved as proposed, could degrade the protected Doñana wetland,” said a community spokesperson after the appointment.
The Andalusian Minister of Sustainability, Environment and Blue Economy, Ramón Fernández-Pacheco, had declared that the commissioner had “expressed his concern about compliance with the sentence” of the Court of Justice of the EU of 2021 that obliges Spain to protect the park and that he had “committed to evaluate all the arguments” of the Andalusian government.
He did not mention, however, that Sinkevicius openly criticized the bill.
“The measures adopted so far by Spain to deal with the breaches declared by the Court of Justice (…) are not enough, even without the probable negative impact of the proposed regulation, which seems to go in the opposite direction, as explained in our letter to the Spanish authorities of March 20, 2023 and a previous letter of January 31, 2022”, they indicated.