The Autonomous Governments of Andalusia, Murcia and the Valencian Community – all governed by the PP – have opposed Ecological, announced last Tuesday, to understand that they will compromise the water flow that these regions are currently receiving with the consequent economic losses for their agriculture. The affected irrigators have also asked the Government to reconsider the proposal to reduce derivations by up to 40% for 2027.
The miteco announced the report prepared by the Center for Studies and Experimentation of Public Works (CEDEX) on the update of the exploitation rule to comply with the ecological flows provided for in the Tajo hydrological plan, which requires a gradual modification of the planned for each planned step of increasing the ecological flows. According to the analysis, which according to the Ministry, “part of the legal parameters and demands as of today”, a hardening of the thresholds to authorize transfers is expected. Among them: the increase in the requirements to authorize the maximum of transferred water (60 cubic hectometers), which would only be allowed when “joint stocks in the reservoirs of Entrepeñas (Cuenca) and Buendía (Guadalajara) become 1,600 cubic hectometers”, to declare them at level 1 and 2. At present that threshold is located in the 1,300 and 600 hectometers cubic, respectively. It is also proposed that the reservoirs enter at level 3 – “exceptional hydrological situations” that prevent caudal – when they accumulate 530 hectometers, a limit that until now was set at 400.
Sara Rubira and Miguel Barrachina, have met this Friday morning to urge the central government not to approve the new rules when considering that it is an “insolidaria, ideological and made unilateral” reform.
The Andalusian counselor has warned that, if approved, from 2027, “Almería will receive 7.5 hectometers less, which is practically half of the water resources it had so far”, to draw attention to how that transfer had guaranteed the development of that province, as well as the entire region of Murcia and Alicante.
Precisely, the president of this last community, the popular Carlos Mazón, lashed out yesterday against the new Mitecus criteria to understand that they are “a direct attack” to the way of life of Valencia.
“We are probably attending one of the greatest attacks that the Pedro Sánchez government has given the Valencian Community, Murcia and Almería,” he said from New York, where he is officially traveling. In similar terms, his Murcian counterpart, Fernando López Miras (PP), who also urged socialist deputies to “put aside partisan interests”, against a “cut” that he considers that it is 50% of the transfer and whose effects “go far beyond farmers and irrigators”.
If, on the one hand, Andalusia, Murcia and Community Valencian have shown their frontal rejection of the new exploitation rules presented by Miteco, Castilla-La Mancha has been very satisfied with the new proposal. “The most relevant is not the proposals made by the Ministry, not even that we have won five sentences and that we are demanding compliance with the European directives, but the proposal that is made, for once, does not hide technical reality,” said its president, Emiliano García-Page for whom, the new modifications evidence the “enormous failure” of the transfer. The socialist baron also made it clear that “if the desalination network was in full performance, it would make the transfer unnecessary.”
The miteco said Tuesday that he would explain all the details of the report and the subsequent steps to both users and the autonomous communities. Andalusia, Murcia and Valencia have already requested a meeting with Minister Sara Aagesen. In any case, the new rules must undergo a public information process and have the report of the National Water Council prior to approval.
