If they listen to them, so do we. Given the news that the Minister of Ecological Transition, Teresa Ribera, is going to meet this Monday with the Generalitat to address the issue of the drought and the Ebro, the president of Aragon, Jorge Azcón, has requested by letter an “urgent meeting ” with the socialist representative to express his rejection of any transfer and analyze the situation.
“I can't imagine that if the minister is going to meet with the Generalitat, she is not going to do so with the Government of Aragon,” Azcón said. “No decision can be made about the Ebro without first listening to the Aragonese,” he added.
The regional leader made these statements after an institutional interview with the new president of the Ebro Hydrographic Confederation (CHE), Carlos Arrazola, who two days ago said in Zaragoza that he had not received “any document, any request or any project” from the Generalitat. about a possible transfer of flows.
The transfer of the Ebro River is a capital - and thorny - issue in Aragon, where massive mobilizations against any attempt to transfer flows have already been recorded in the past. Therefore, the fact that Minister Ribera did not recently rule out that, in emergency situations, “extraordinary measures” may be taken, she put many parties in the region on guard. They suspect that the central government, deeply involved in political negotiations with the pro-independence parties, is contemplating a possible transfer to the neighboring community.
“We are worried, because we have seen transfers to Catalonia that we previously thought were impossible to occur,” Azcón said. For this reason, he said he fears that “if the independentists put the need for a transfer on the table as a new blackmail, the Sánchez Government will accept. “That is going over Aragón and its interests,” he added.
Regarding the drought crisis in Catalonia, Azcón pointed out that they are waiting to know what proposals the ministry and the Generalitat have to evaluate them. He also urged Catalan authorities to do “deep reflection.” “Their problem is that they have been more concerned with independence or amnesty than with water,” he criticized.
Regarding the situation in Aragon, the president insisted that “there is not enough water” and that the drought is also taking its toll, with a reduction in harvests in 2023 of 50%, losses of about 1.5 billion euros. and rising food prices.
For this reason, he urged the central government to undertake or conclude the pending hydraulic works - Almudévar, Mularroya, Santolea and Yesa -, in addition to demanding that the Biscarrués project be recovered "with greater consensus" to increase the regulation of the Gállego River, which the Supreme Court already ruled out.
