Teresa Jordà, Minister of Climate Action, Food and Rural Agenda, points to the PSC as responsible for the failure of the water summit held on Friday at the behest of the Government to agree on measures against the drought. "It is intolerable and extremely irresponsible that, due to a tactical issue with municipal elections around the corner, an agreement is not wanted", he says. "There has been a will to throw the agreement down", he says.
Why was there no agreement? Is it bad news?
We came to have a document prepared for the agreement. All that needed to be done was to set a date for when sanctions could be applied to municipalities that did not comply with the established water allocations.
what went wrong
The groups agreed that the date of application (of those sanctions) would be July 1. We had moved our position, because the application should start already. The position of only one group did not allow for an agreement. I have the feeling that the political class has not yet understood what moment we are in. These droughts will be repeated.
Why does the Government want to impose sanctions on municipalities that do not present a drought plan or exceed the water allocations established by the Generalitat?
The drought decree that we approved aims to facilitate the emergency action of the councils against the drought. Only one of the 13 articles talks about this matter. Our vocation is not to sanction anyone to collect four cents.
So why do they wear it?
It's about dissuading and putting some pressure on them, because tackling the problem requires a more efficient use of water by everyone. We said that we are willing to extend the compliance deadlines and that we would send notices. But if the councils don't do their homework, we need some tool for them to do it.
Even municipal organizations are asking them to withdraw...
There must be co-responsibility. We cannot afford the luxury of municipalities that have not done their homework for a year and a half, or that there are water leaks. There are already activities that have restrictions, such as industry and the agricultural and livestock sector, which is what provides us with food, and we are asking for the citizen's cooperation. Not acting is a grievance for the municipalities that have done their homework, that have understood that water is key. We cannot reduce this to a tactical and electoral debate.
Large municipalities in the second metropolitan crown asked to lift the current veto and to be able to fill public swimming pools this summer, arguing that they are now climate shelters.
Yes, this is an issue that we will solve through a Government agreement to modify the Special Drought Plan (2020) where there was this restriction. This was one of the agreements about to be resolved. We will make all agreements possible.
Many voices say that it is necessary to help the councils, not to sanction them.
The agreement established this aid. It included support to the town halls to solve this type of problem. We are willing to give this margin, but be aware that everyone has to put their necks in it.
How are the extraordinary investments established by the pre-agreement?
We undertake to apply them as if we had initialed it. 99% of us at the summit table agree on this. We will advance the works as much as we can. What cannot be is that electoral interests are prioritized. We are talking about the most important drought the country has ever suffered and the climate emergency. There was no agreement because someone wanted to point out that the group supporting the Government is 33 deputies.
How many municipalities fail to comply with the obligation imposed by the decree (not to exceed the allocation of 250 liters per person per day during the alert phase or due to the lack of emergency plans against the drought for those with more than 20,000 inhabitants)?
For various reasons, some 200 municipalities fail to comply with it among those that have the obligation.
Will we have domestic supply cuts for essential services this summer in the Barcelona region?
Despite the fact that the drought we are experiencing is extremely severe, the Government has been working for some time so that this does not have to happen.
The Government's drought decree emphasizes the responsibility of councils; there are those who accuse the Government of evading its responsibilities...
I deny the major. The Government is working on this issue continuously, with the Catalan Water Agency, precisely to guarantee the supply.
And has the Government done its homework?
They have been acting preventively, well in advance, so that no water restrictions are imposed on any citizen or any economic activity. The production capacity of the desalination and water regeneration plants has been expanded.
Have they done enough?
Between 2022 and 2023 we generate more than 200 additional hm3 of water that goes directly to the supply. This produced water is equivalent to the entire flow that goes to the Sau and Sant Ponç reservoirs. In this way, we have delayed the entry into a situation of exceptionality by about six months. Without these additional resources, if we had not decreed the pre-alert and if we had not activated the desalination plants at the maximum level, among other actions, we would have entered a phase of exceptionality six months ago in the Ter Llobregat area.
Will there be more water summits?
I am convinced of it; but the decree, for now, is serving us. We must take the Ter Table as a reference to create the National Water Table. And we must approve a brave and agreed investment plan.
Because?
This drought episode will end one day or another; but the experts tell us that another one of the same can come in three years. We suffer the worst drought since 1905; and we haven't applied more restrictions because a lot of work has been done beforehand.
then?
This should be the legislature in which the Government and the political forces of the Parliament were able to agree on the investments so that we do not find ourselves in any other drought situation like this in the future, and because, once and for all , we agree. When this country has not cooperated we have not been able to move forward. We wouldn't be in this situation if everyone had done their job as it should have been done; or if during the previous drought, in 2008, it had not ended up raining.
