PP and Vox "veto" Miguel Delibes in the appearances on the irrigation law with Doñana

The voice of Miguel Delibes, president of the Doñana Participation Council, will not be heard in the Andalusian Parliament. The Development Commission has approved on Wednesday the list of people who will appear on June 13 to give their opinion on the controversial proposal of law of PP and Vox that expands irrigation in the Doñana environment. This is a preliminary step in the processing of all legislative initiatives in order for the groups to better focus their work.

PP and Vox, with a majority in the Development Board, have not included the name of Delibes that had requested the other three groups: Socialist, For Andalusia and the mixed-Forward Andalusia. Neither did Eloy Revilla, director of the Doñana Biological Station; nor that of Robert Casier, representative of UNESCO. Delibes, critical of the proposal, did go to the Andalusian Chamber last term when the right processed a similar initiative, which declined due to the electoral advance.

The hearings will be held in a single day and each person summoned will have 10 minutes for his presentation. The Doñana Participation Council is a consultative body that includes all the institutions involved in the nature reserve. If the initiative had been processed as a bill, it would have had to issue a non-binding report.

The opposition bloc has complained during the meeting of the Development Commission of the "veto" of the PP. But the protest has not changed the position of the president of the commission, the popular Ana Chocano. The list of participants has come out with the support of the PP, which has an absolute majority, and Vox. The left-wing groups voted against. This lack of unanimity is very unusual in this type of procedure.

The participants who will attend Parliament are the same as those who appear in the list registered by the PP on May 2. Some names on the list, such as those of the five mayors of the municipalities of the County of Huelva, are shared by all groups.

The PP froze the processing of the bill that extends irrigation with Doñana until the celebration of the municipal elections. But once this has been held, all parliamentary levers have been activated. The PP will govern for the first time in its history in the Huelva Provincial Council and has managed to snatch the mayor of Huelva from the socialist Gabriel Cruz, who governed with an absolute majority. This result gives them air to continue defending the expansion of irrigable areas.

The proposal of law is processed by the route of urgency, which shortens the deadlines by half, and the PP is prepared to strictly comply with the express calendar so that it is approved in the last plenary session of July on 26 and 27, three days after the general elections.

The "veto" to Delibes and other proposals of the groups calls into question the words of the Minister of Environment and spokesman of the Andalusian Government, Ramón Fernández-Pacheco. He said today: "The time is coming for the appearances of the social partners who, representing or proposing the different groups, will appear in committee. I am convinced that it will be an enriching process."

Doñana continues in the electoral day of both the PSOE and the PP. A tweet yesterday from President Pedro Sánchez, with a link to the news of a campaign in Germany not to buy red fruits from Huelva to avoid the drying of Doñana, had the replica of another message from the president of the Board, Juan Manuel Moreno. To Sánchez's "Salvemos Doñana," Moreno wrote: "The manipulation has gotten out of hand. Speaking ill of Andalusia and its farmers in Europe has these consequences. They are playing with the bread of thousands of families. Doñana is saved with more commitment and less demagoguery. It's all right!"

The proposed law is opposed by the European Commission, the Government of Spain, the scientific community and UNESCO. This international organization clarified on May 25 that the proposal of the Andalusian right is "contrary" to the recommendations that its experts have given in recent years to protect the reserve.

UNESCO's pronouncement has great relevance for two reasons: because the body positions itself against the law in full parliamentary processing and is a clear precedent before its world heritage committee decides in September whether to include Doñana in its list of endangered enclaves; and because after the European Commission, UNESCO is the second international organization that warns the Andalusian Government that its plans for Doñana go in the opposite direction to the protection of the park.

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