Ecological Transition warns about the plans of PP, Cs and Vox in Doñana: "There will be no water, it is a deception to the irrigators"

The Ministry for the Ecological Transition has warned this Tuesday that the new irrigators in the Doñana area that will emerge, if the initiative of PP, Ciudadanos and Vox in the Andalusian Parliament to legalize 1,460 hectares prospers, they will lack water for their strawberry greenhouses near the protected area and that have depleted its aquifer for decades.

“There will be no water, not a single cubic meter, it is a deception to the irrigators.

Not a single hectare can be regularized, there will be no water for them”, repeated the Secretary of State for the Environment, Hugo Morán.

Ecological Transition, through the Guadalquivir Hydrographic Confederation, is the body that could grant water to the new irrigators if the legislative initiative of the right in Andalusia goes ahead, given that it adds enough votes in the regional Chamber. The extraordinary drought declared in November in the Guadalquivir basin, the level of the reservoirs, which are at 28% of their capacity, and the Doñana aquifer, which was declared "overexploited" by the Government a year and a half ago, make it impossible that these new irrigators agree to have water rights, wields the Government. The initiative of the three political groups would mean that 1,460 illegal hectares become "irrigable agricultural land", although without guaranteeing them permission to have surface or underground water.

The confrontation between the Andalusian Board and the central Executive has risen a few more degrees this Wednesday due to this controversial initiative raised in an election year by the parties that govern in this community and the extreme right. “The rights [of the irrigators] are not going to be recognized. I ask the Board to veto this bill and not allow a sterile debate (...). Generating expectations doomed to failure is literally cheating. A right to water without water is smoke”, added Morán. The Andalusian president, Juan Manuel Moreno, alleged on Tuesday that the initiative restored "historical rights" of the farmers in the area of ​​Doñana. "Historical rights only exist in the imagination of the Andalusian president", Morán replied,who has recalled that these claims put forward by illegal farmers and addressed by the Andalusian president lack legal framework.

In parallel, the European Commission will analyze the Andalusian Board's plan after United We Can have sent a letter to the European Parliament.

"This proposal is an environmental attack that would give the natural park the finishing touch and would exacerbate the unfair competition suffered by the agricultural sector that complies with the regulations," the party's spokesman, Toni Valero, criticized.

The European Commissioner for the Environment, Virginijus Sinkevičius, has six weeks to assess whether the Andalusian bill endangers Doñana and contravenes the ruling of the EU Court of Justice, which condemned Spain last June for not having stopped the plunder caused by clandestine greenhouses through wells.

Morán will meet this week with Sinkevičius and both will deal with the controversial measure.

An immigrant passes in front of the raft of the irrigation community of El Fresno, in Lucena del Puerto (Huelva).

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It remains to be seen what sanctions will be derived from non-compliance with the ruling of the Court of Justice of the EU, in case the judges consider that this pending legal reform contravenes their ruling.

“The sentence is binding and we cannot ignore it (…) We did not deviate one millimeter from the 2014 crown plan,” Morán stated.

The problem is that the Ministry assures international institutions such as the European Commission and UNESCO that Spain will defend said crown plan to protect the Doñana aquifer, but the program of measures is in the hands of the Board, which rows in the direction contrary.

The Confederation has not specified whether its legal services have guaranteed that the owners of these 1,460 hectares, many of which are now irrigated with illegal wells, will not have water no matter how much they claim it through administrative or judicial channels. There are five irrigation communities in Almonte (Huelva) who hold the opposite opinion and believe that these new irrigators from the area around the reserve could compete with them and therefore cause a reduction in the water supplies they enjoy today, making them a threat for the survival of their farms in the face of planned irrigation restrictions. In other words, the collusion of legal farmers with illegal ones has ended with a stroke of the pen because the latter are unfair competition and from now on they could turn off the tap.

These irrigation communities have warned in a letter that the Confederation, "in surface water concessions previously granted, has privileged users without prior rights." The irrigators have addressed four political groups (PP, Cs, Vox and PSOE) to ask them to avoid processing the bill urgently, so that it has the technical reports that explain the feasibility of incorporating new irrigation. The Andalusian president, Juan Manuel Moreno, claimed yesterday that the initiative is promoted "so that everyone can participate and be heard", despite the absence of the Confederation and the Doñana Participation Council, organizations that have the technicians who know the water management in the area.

The Ministry recalls that the Board "knows that there is no water" and that is why it did not raise its initiative in the Hydrological Plan that was closed on December 17, where the Confederation could have answered it to demonstrate with technical reports that the initiative is not possible. . Yesterday Moreno insisted that his party's parliamentary initiative does not mean "expanding irrigation", despite the fact that the bill says otherwise. The Andalusian president also stressed that the farms that will be legalized do not affect the aquifer because "they are 30 kilometers from the park." However, some of the farms affected by the regularization are barely a couple of kilometers from the reserve. Meanwhile, UNESCO has addressed its demand for information on the Andalusian plan to the General Directorate of Fine Arts and Heritage of the Ministry of Culture,your regular interlocutor in Spain.

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