The protection of Doñana and the fight for water in its surroundings have become the scene of the political battle between the PSOE and the PP. Faced with the repeated warnings of the European Commission for the lack of protection of this natural space, the spokesmen of the Central Government dare to point out the Junta de Andalucía as being responsible for a possible millionaire fine from the EU to Spain for breaching the sentence which obliges to take care to preserve it.
The Central Government has deployed a whole strategy of siege to the PP to give up the bill they are processing in the Andalusian Parliament to regularize the illegal irrigation systems around Doñana. This initiative has provoked the rejection of the scientific community and environmental groups, and has given rise to repeated warnings from the European Commission. Meanwhile, the organizations of farmers in Huelva are divided.
The proposed law by the PP and Vox in the Andalusian Parliament – aimed at legitimizing around 750 hectares of illegal irrigation – has set off alarms in Brussels. Yesterday, the European Commission reiterated that these plans violate the judgment of the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg, of June 2021, which condemned Spain for not adequately protecting this natural space; in addition, he stressed that he will use "all means" to ensure that the authorities comply.
"If it is approved in the terms in which it has been announced, this bill could contravene the applicable Community environmental legislation", warns the European Commissioner for the Environment, Virginijus Sinkevicius, in response to a parliamentary question raised by MEPs Javi López and César Luena (PSOE). If this were the case, warns Sinkevicius, the EC would take into consideration "the use of all the means available in the treaties to ensure that Spain complies effectively and without delay with the judgment of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) ” regarding the Doñana park.
The mention by Brussels of the use of "all means" for Spain to comply with the order to protect the aquifers is a reminder of the next step that the Commission will take (take Spain back to court) to not comply with the sentence and to claim the imposition of the fines. The penalties, which can consist of paying a fine for each day that compliance with the sentence is delayed, would be potentially multimillion-dollar.
Last month, the Director General of Environment of the European Commission, Florika Fink Hooijer, wrote a letter to the Spanish Government in which she expressed her "astonishment" at the plans of the Andalusian Executive: the initiative, she said, "would aggravate significantly" the situation of Doñana"; and warned that if his "strict protection" was not guaranteed, he would ask the CJEU to impose "pecuniary sanctions".
The Ministry for Ecological Transition, headed by Teresa Ribera, sent the requested information to Brussels yesterday (the last day it had a deadline to do so). The letter details the actions promoted by the Central Government to protect Doñana, while in its explanation the Board of Andalusia reiterates that the proposed law does not affect the park (which scientists deny), which is the result of the initiative parliamentary and that the separation of powers must be respected.
Minister Teresa Ribera reiterated her pressure. "I trust that the reminders from the European Commission and the confirmations about the risk that all Spaniards have to pay for this barbarity will make the PP think, and the proposed law will be left in the fire of shavings", he points out. Ribera asked Juanma Moreno Bonilla "not to falsify the facts in Europe"; and "to Mr. Feijóo to put order in his party, if he is committed to European laws and to a space that is a heritage of humanity".
The debate has jumped to the European Parliament. The president of the European People's Party, Manfred Weber, and the leader of the PP in the Eurochamber, Dolors Montserrat, have written to the vice-president of the Commission, Frans Timmermans, to defend the Andalusian law proposal; they claim that the plan "does not affect" the fulfillment of the sentence, but that it solves "historical problems" and they ask for a meeting to explain it.
"Feijóo's PP is unable to understand the regulatory framework in which Spain operates and to accept the role of the Government in Brussels", replies Javi López (PSC). The MEP denounces that the PPE "allows itself to be used to defend its electoral interests in Spain", due to its internal weakness. The response of the community executive, he concludes, "is a clear, explicit and timely warning" that the proposed arrangement of the irrigated areas around Doñana "would clash with the European regulatory framework and the EC would act".
