The plenary session of the Consell has approved this Friday to form a working group for the drafting of the preliminary draft of a Valencian law on Coasts and the reform of the Pativel (Territorial Action Plan for the Green Infrastructure of the Coast) validated just a month ago by the Supreme Court and approved in 2018 to revert as rustic what was declared as urbanizable. thus protecting thousands of hectares and saving at least the first 500 meters of soil from the shore. The Generalitat intends to assume powers that are now exercised by the central government through Costas but which, according to the Executive led by Carlos Mazón, could be transferred by virtue of the Statute.
The Minister of the Environment, Salomé Pradas, explained that the law "aspires" to regulate uses and activities of the coast and to make compatible "economic and social development and the protection of the coast". Despite the fact that he has repeatedly expressed the capacity of the Generalitat to assume these powers, his own words have raised doubts about the invasion of powers that the regional government may incur. "We will defend ourselves," Pradas said when asked if the initiative and future law is not destined to the bilateral government-autonomy commission to determine jurisdiction. The minister has assured that she has rulings from the Constitutional Court and cases from other communities to which competences have already been transferred. The Balearic and Canary archipelagos and Andalusia and Catalonia are the autonomous regions that already have them. In the first two cases, it arose from an agreement between the central and regional governments, which is not the way in which the Consell de Mazón is working. In the case of Catalonia, the law was appealed to the Constitutional Court, which endorsed it, in the judgment mentioned by Pradas, due to the reference that its Statute makes to the management of the coast, much more explicit than that contained in the Valencian Statute. The same is true in the case of Andalusia, whose statute is practically identical to that of Catalan. However, the absence of the powers contained in the Statute is what has led the Constitutional Court itself to suspend the Galician law, which sought to apply its own criteria and deadlines to act against illegal constructions on the coast.
According to sources from the Ministry of the Environment of the Generalitat Valenciana, the model for the draft bill is that Galician law that aims to limit action against illegal constructions and, in fact, that has been one of the examples given by Salomé Pradas who has mentioned the conflicts over the maritime towns of Denia, Nules and Cabanes, groups of houses built dozens of years ago on the same beach, a space that Costas considers to be within the maritime-terrestrial domain whose exclusive competence is the State.
In fact, this is one of the examples given by Salomé Pradas and with which she has justified a new law that "defends" the owners of these homes against the "unjust and arbitrary excesses" of the Government, as she has said.
Sources from the ministry have also indicated that the powers they will request will be those related to "dry land, up to the sea", so that the regeneration of the beaches or the reconstruction of the promenades that are repeatedly affected by maritime storms should be paid for by the Generalitat.
Socialist Response
The announcement has already received a response from the PSPV. The socialist deputy spokesperson in Les Corts and responsible for the area of Territory, María José Salvador, has accused the PP of using "the Valencian institutions as a battering ram against the Government of Spain" and has remarked that "this proposal invades the competences of the State and will end up suspended by the Constitutional Court as has happened in Galicia". In addition, the socialist leader urged the Council to "explain in detail what its real objective is with this new legislation" and regretted that "the right is returning to its model of savage urbanism, from which it seems that they have learned nothing".
The deputy spokesperson of the PSPV-PSOE has affirmed that "the policies that we Valencian socialists will always defend will be those that are committed to fighting against climate change, preserving the territory and the landscape enclaves" and insisted that "they will always find us in front of them when they make politics an instrument of confrontation".
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