The Andalusian Parliament puts legal objections to the PP and Vox bill that expands irrigation in Doñana

The PP and Vox bill that defends the expansion of irrigable areas in the area of ​​Doñana will be able to see the light on April 12, since the PP is enough and left over thanks to its absolute majority (58 of 109 deputies) to take it forward

And although the Government of Juan Manuel Moreno has again avoided issuing a report on its position, the lawyers of the Parliament of Andalusia have raised legal objections to the initiative, without ever disqualifying it.

The jurists come to say that the legislative route used —the proposed law— is like killing flies with cannon shots, since what is proposed are ordinary regulatory changes that are the responsibility of the Government, not Parliament, for which reason "it is not respected" The beginning of normative hierarchy.

This will be the second time that the PP defends the expansion of irrigation in five municipalities of Huelva County (Almonte, Bonares, Lucena del Puerto, Moguer and Rociana del Condado).

In the previous legislature, the proposal declined because the elections were anticipated, but now the popular ones are returning to rescue it, spurred on by Vox, which was the first to raise it in this term.

The background is none other than the proximity of the municipal elections on May 28.

Although the proposal does not run any parliamentary risk and the Andalusian legislature has just begun, the PP has requested that it be processed urgently, which cuts the deadlines in half.

It is very probable that before the August holidays it will be published in the Official Gazette of the Parliament.

The Andalusian Government has not wanted, as already happened in the previous legislature, to issue its criteria, in favor or against, regarding its consideration.

The Executive is not obliged to give its opinion, that is, it can pass the buck before a legislative proposal from the parliamentary groups, although it is not usual.

In the case of Parliament, avoiding this procedure is not possible, since it must issue a mandatory report, although not binding.

Carmen Noguerol, the lawyer who signs the report, dated March 24, questions the use of a law to promote regulatory changes of a lower rank.

"Although it can be understood that the bill has an objective justification, what is not explained at any time is that the specific modification that is proposed to the Special Plan [for Irrigation Management of the County of Huelva, approved by decree in 2014] it must be done through a formal law and not through a regulation (...) that justifies the omission of the regulated procedure" in the Law of Impulse for the sustainability of the territory of Andalusia, approved in 2021. "It does not seem that it is justified that in the present If it is fulfilled (...) that the use of the formal law is a reasonable and proportionate measure to the exceptional situation that justifies its approval”.

In this sense, the report cites a judgment of the Constitutional Court of March 2015 in which it is stated: "The adoption of singular laws must be circumscribed to those exceptional cases that, due to their extraordinary importance and complexity, cannot be remedied by the instruments available to the Administration”.

The report recommends changes in the legislative technique of the proposed law, considering that the one registered "is not correct."

On the same day that the approval of the PP and Vox initiative is expected, Parliament will debate a non-legal proposal of the PSOE, agreed with the Mystery of Ecological Transition, in which it is defended to agree with the European authorities on the actions in Doñana .

It also proposes the creation of a central Junta-Government bilateral commission to deal with everything that affects the National Park, among them, the "execution of pending hydraulic infrastructures."

The processing of the future law proposed by PP and Vox, which plans to expand the irrigable areas by some 1,500 hectares, caused a new notice from Brussels.

On March 17, the Director General of the Environment, Florika Fink Hooijer, sent a letter to the Government of Spain in which she warned that if the bill that would regularize these illegal crops goes ahead, the Commission will not hesitate to adopt " all the necessary measures, including the filing of a new appeal before the Court of Justice in which he would request that pecuniary sanctions be imposed”.

The spokesman for the Andalusian Government and Minister of Sustainability, Environment and Blue Economy, Ramón Fernández-Pacheco, maintains that the PP initiative "protects Doñana like never before" because it "prohibits the extraction of any water resource from the area."

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