One day after the pact for Doñana between the Government and the Andalusian Junta (PP) remained up in the air, the latter has backed down.
Last Friday, the regional Executive published a decree law with a controversial article to amnesty the offending farmers with berries on forest land next to the reserve and other crops in different areas of the region.
He did it by surprise and less than three months after having signed an agreement with the Ministry for the Ecological Transition that will bring 350 million euros of rain to the Doñana environment through a social plan to revitalize the area and minimize the ecological impact on the environment. overexploited aquifer.
Given the Andalusian legislative change, the Government left said plan on hold this Monday until late in the afternoon the situation was remedied and the president, Juan Manuel Moreno, announced that he will take up the red carpet extended to the farmers fined for having replaced their trees for red fruits, even though the forestry law prevented it.
“From the Andalusian Government we do not want war of any kind and we are willing to sit down with them [Ministry], to tell us what they do not like and to modify it,” Moreno said this Tuesday, who has downplayed his amnesty, despite that the wording of the brief article of the very extensive decree law is very clear: “Absolutely nothing is happening, the Ministry has interpreted that there was some cause that could reverse the situation of the soils.
We do not agree, but in any case, as the general interest prevails, it will not take us 10 minutes to reach an agreement,” added the Andalusian president.
After accumulating a list of oppositions against his bill to expand irrigation next to the park that included the European Commission, UNESCO and the Government, Moreno backed down and only withdrew the law last October in exchange for the million-dollar social plan.
He before him admitted the wear and tear on his government, but for almost two years he continued to sell his image as a green politician while the facts contradicted him.
He has now given in in just one day, but knowing that he was risking a multimillion-dollar investment to maintain a brief text that further benefits farmers who will already be blessed with financial aid.
The clash shows the fragility of the peace signed in November between the Government and the Junta.
This Tuesday, the vice president and minister for the Ecological Transition, Teresa Ribera, has lowered the tone of her surprise on Monday after the Council of Ministers: “I hope that this is resolved as soon as possible and possibly requires a specific provision because it was already published in the Official Gazette (…) Moreno informed me of his availability to correct the provisions that may affect this decree law and it is essential to be able to move forward.
Obviously, it is not a correct signal to increase pressure on Doñana.”
Birds in Doñana seen from the village of El Rocío, at the beginning of February.PACO PUENTES
After a long day in which the Doñana pact was on the verge of being blown up, and after striking changes in position on the part of the Board, it insisted this Tuesday on highlighting that “there is no back door.”
That is to say, the controversial article was not approved and published in the Official Gazette with the intention of hiding it from the ministry, despite the fact that it was rescued from the articles of its initial bill that expanded irrigation next to the protected space, and that it was included in a mammoth decree law that changes 176 regulations in one fell swoop and with only seven days for review by the opposition.
If the ministry demands that the Board transpose the state forestry law into the Andalusian law with the same wording to avoid confusion, will it do so?
“We would accept the literal text of the national law,” say sources from the Andalusian Government.
The current battle will supposedly last little and will consist of the imposition of the appropriate text by the Ecological Transition, if Moreno maintains his optimistic promise of a brief and successful dialogue.
This Wednesday, the Minister of the Environment and spokesman for the Andalusian Government, Ramón Fernández-Pacheco, and the Secretary of State for the Environment, Hugo Morán, will hold a meeting to agree on the scope of the changes in the super decree law on administrative simplification.
The idea is to use a decree law on another matter to smooth out the initial text.
But that decision will not be made in the Government Council this Wednesday, but in a later one, according to sources from the autonomous Executive.
The next day, Thursday, Ribera and Moreno will meet in Seville to talk about measures against the drought and confirm the changes agreed to by their teams.
Meanwhile, the Andalusian PSOE, which raised the alarm about Moreno's attempt to amnesty farmers retroactively, will appeal the decree law before the Constitutional Court because there are no reasons of "extraordinary and urgent need" that justify the reform of those 176 regulations with the speed required by the chosen procedure, and for lacking the mandatory reports from the Council of Local Governments.
“The PP's commitment to farmers is to reverse the classification of the Doñana soil and that is why they transposed the forestry law retroactively.
But you cannot apply it to situations outside the norm, as Moreno intends to reactivate now, through the back door,” criticizes the leader of the Andalusian socialists, Juan Espadas.
The legal change approved by the Board and now in the air sought to guarantee that from now on, farmers sanctioned in the last 30 years for having planted crops - irrigated or dry land - where there were pine, poplar or eucalyptus forests - short cycle species - are exempt from said administrative fines.
That is to say, if the Andalusian forestry law prohibited a farmer since 1992 from planting strawberries where he had previously planted trees, in order to favor the regeneration of the Andalusian mountains, this prohibition is now eliminated.
In parallel, also this Wednesday the Andalusian Parliament will validate the simplification decree with the votes in favor of the absolute majority of the popular group and also of Vox.
The rest of the opposition demands the processing of the decree law as a bill, which would allow them to participate in the reform through the presentation of amendments and would open a hearing period for the sectors concerned.
The Government of Juan Manuel Moreno does not contemplate this possibility at all.
From the PSOE and Por Andalucía the express route used by the PP Government is called “cacicada”.
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