PSOE and Partido Popular have expressed this Thursday in the plenary session of the Cortes of Castilla-La Mancha their support for the agricultural organizations in their request to halt the IV Hydrological Planning Cycle. However, that coincidence has not finally been reflected in a joint agreement, as each group has separately rejected the other's resolution proposals.
While the PP adopted as its own the proposal submitted by Asaja and UPA on the Hydrological Planning Process 2028-2033, the PSOE maintained that the demands of these organizations were already included in the allegations that the regional Executive has presented to the different hydrographic plans.
Despite that verbal point of agreement during the debate, at the time of voting on the resolutions, the PSOE rejected the PP's text and the 'popular' party did the same with the socialist initiative. At the close of the session, only the PSOE's proposal prospered, with the abstention of the PP and the rejection of Vox, while the PP's proposal was discarded with the votes against from the socialists and Vox.
MORE THAN ONE HUNDRED ALLEGATIONS
Socialist deputy Ana Isabel Abengózar recalled that the PSOE has registered more than one hundred allegations, drafted together with the Regional Water Council and supported by the Regional Water Pact, to defend the interests of the four hydrographic basins affecting the community.
In its resolution, the socialists include the requests made by Asaja and UPA. "We have a single position, the same here, the same in Madrid, the same in Murcia, wherever we go, we maintain the same position."
As she explained, these allegations, agreed upon with the sector, comply with the Water Framework Directive and do not claim "to take water from anyone," but rather that Castilla-La Mancha "stops always being the one that gives while others always receive." "That the sacrifices do not always fall on the same people, as has been happening for more than 40 years."
Abengózar reproached the PP for remaining silent "when their party at the national level tells them that Castilla-La Mancha is not a priority for them in terms of water."
"You cannot defend Castilla-La Mancha here and then go to Murcia to applaud the transfers to the area. In short, that is the coherence and credibility of the Partido Popular. I would say that the credibility of the Partido Popular went drop by drop with the transfer to Levante," she stated.
The socialist parliamentarian has also criticized that "what cannot water the future of Castilla-La Mancha are the zero allegations that the Popular Party, at the head of the institutions, has made." "Then you go around the towns saying that you defend water. Where is your work in defense of water?", she has questioned.
PP: A SERIOUS DOCUMENT
From the PP, deputy Carolina Agudo has replied to the PSOE that "politics is not judged by the allegations one presents, but by when problems are solved."
In this regard, she has highlighted that the agricultural organizations have drafted "a serious, rigorous, and profoundly worrying document," which she has defined as "the voice of those who know the problem because they live from the land and because they depend on water."
Agudo has detailed that in that document the organizations denounce "the reduction of allocations, loss of water rights, forced transformation of irrigated land to dry land, loss of economic activity, of employment, of the patrimonial value of the land and, of course, territories threatened by depopulation."
The PP has called on the regional government to adopt this document as its own and not to end up "in a drawer like the Regional Pact, nor in an inbox of the Socialist Parliamentary Group's email."
"What we want is for this document to reach the Government of Spain and for this document to also reach the confederations and European institutions. The agricultural organizations of Castilla-La Mancha have risen to the occasion, now it is up to the institutions of Castilla-La Mancha to rise to the occasion of what our countryside demands and to do so with actions," Agudo has stressed.
VOX AND THE "MODEL OF ABUNDANCE"
For his part, Vox deputy David Moreno has defended that his party is committed to a "model of abundance, investment in hydraulic works, and national solidarity," an approach included in his own proposal, which has also been rejected.
Vox calls for a "necessary national water plan, which is not a utopia," with "a network of infrastructures that allows water to be stored where it is abundant and efficiently transferred where it is scarce."
"Spain was capable of building great hydraulic works in the past and today you tell us that this is not possible with your legislation, with your ideological garbage that you approve and inject into all regulations. What is needed is will," he has maintained.
According to Moreno, there is "regional selfishness and political corruption," "where the money that Spaniards need to carry out hydraulic works goes." Therefore, his group advocates for "the interconnection of basins," considering it "intolerable that while one region suffers floods and discharges water into the sea, another a few kilometers away sees its crops die from drought."
The deputy has insisted that "farmers and ranchers are not the enemies of the environment" and has accused the PSOE of presenting a resolution that "only" seeks "to launder itself."
THE REGIONAL GOVERNMENT REPLIES TO PP AND VOX
The Minister of Sustainable Development, Mercedes Gómez, has censured that PP and Vox "have not taken the trouble to look at the Regional Government's website where the allegations that have been presented are published."
"The document provided by agricultural organizations is included in the allegations of the Government of Castilla-La Mancha," Gómez has specified.
She has questioned Vox about whether it is proposing "a huge dam be built in Extremadura, on the border with Portugal, so that the poor citizens of Portugal do not have the right to have resources." "That is unfeasible, because such a gigantic, gigantic dam would be needed that we would flood half of Spain."
The minister has reiterated that the Regional Government will continue working with "71 groups and all those who wish to join" to defend "the interests of the region for the seven hydrographic basins of Castilla-La Mancha."
In the final vote, Vox only garnered its own support and saw its initiative rejected; that of the PP was also vetoed by PSOE and Vox; while the PSOE's resolution was approved solely with socialist votes and the abstention of the PP, against the rejection of Vox.