The Government of the Generalitat expects to approve in June the hydrological plan for the internal Catalan basins for the period 2022-2027. This was the commitment publicly acquired yesterday by the Department of Climate Action headed by Teresa Jordà. Due to the delay in the delivery of this plan, the European Commission has appealed to the Generalitat, as La Vanguardia reported yesterday.
Catalonia should have reviewed, adopted and informed Brussels of the water management plans before the end of 2022, as required by the European Water Directive. Such instruction provides that the communities update all their data in relation to water management every six years. The purpose: to achieve the full ecological recovery of rivers, lakes and underground reserves, as well as to organize their water services. This planning is especially important now, at a time of serious drought alert like the current one. There are two other non-compliant communities: Andalusia and the Canary Islands.
The Conselleria d'Acció Climàtica assured yesterday that the plan "is right now in its final phase of processing." Since March, the same sources pointed out, it has been in the hands of a legal advisory commission, then it will go through a technical council and finally the Government will vote for it. Once it is approved by the Catalan Executive, it will be sent to the Government and then to the European Commission, "an almost automatic process because in Madrid there is no need to carry out any additional procedures."
According to Teresa Jordà's department, the Government has been informed and is "perfectly aware of the plan's delay", a delay that they attribute to the former leadership of the Agència Catalana de l'Aigua (ACA), which they believe should have started the processing eight months before.
The reprimand that now reaches the central government in the form of the opening of a file from the European Commission could end in an infraction if the legal requirement is not met as soon as possible. The Secretary of State for the Environment, Hugo Morán, has already advanced to this newspaper that a possible sanction "would be passed on from the State, logically, to the non-compliant territories."
The debate on the current drought situation, which affects a good part of Spain, especially Catalonia and Andalusia, will reach the Senate this week. The PP has brought a motion to a plenary vote in which it calls for the urgent convening of the National Drought Table, as well as establishing a schedule of meetings to monitor situations of lack of water in all river basins. The popular raise a contingency plan with extraordinary measures for those basins where the drought situation is more pronounced. The circumstance arises that the proposal of the group led by Alberto Núñez Feijóo arises in full political struggle with the PSOE for the approval on Thursday by PP and Vox in the Andalusian Parliament of a bill to legalize illegal irrigation in Doñana.
