The Courts of Castilla-La Mancha have given the green light to a Non-Binding Proposal from the PSOE that urges the regional Executive to require the Ministry for Ecological Transition and Demographic Challenge to incorporate "immediately the six Supreme Court rulings into the regulations governing the Tajo basin and the operating rules of the Tajo-Segura Aqueduct".
The vote on this parliamentary initiative coincides this Thursday with the Supreme Court's ruling, which has rejected the contentious-administrative appeal filed by the Central Union of Users of the Tajo-Segura Aqueduct (SCRATS) against the revision of the Hydrographic Plan of the Spanish part of the Tajo Hydrographic Demarcation, approved by Royal Decree 35/2023.
With the absolute majority of the socialist group, the PNL was approved, while the PP opted for abstention and Vox voted against. The text also calls on all parties represented in the regional Courts to jointly support the defense of Castilla-La Mancha's water interests.
The PSOE expresses its support for the new approach to water policy in basin plans, which involves modifying the operating rules of the Tajo-Segura Aqueduct with the aim of guaranteeing the ecological flow of the Tajo, increasing the flow as it passes through Aranjuez and Talavera de la Reina, increasing the maximum volume of joint reserves in the Entrepeñas and Buendía reservoirs, and reducing the volumes of water transferred.
PSOE: IT IS "A HISTORIC DAY"
Socialist deputy Ángel Tomás Godoy has described this day as "historic" for Castilla-La Mancha, and has highlighted the effort "not only of the Government of Emiliano García-Page, but of all of Castilla-La Mancha's civil society and all citizens".
For the PSOE parliamentarian, it is "absolutely unprecedented" that the PP and Vox "do not even rejoice at a ruling that benefits this land".
"This ruling comes because we have filed appeals. You -- the PP -- did not file a single appeal against the central government's action, not a single one," Godoy stated in the Plenary.
For this reason, he called on the PP to ask "loud and clear" Levante and Murcia that Castilla-La Mancha "needs water," emphasizing that this judicial resolution "is not a political war, but the fulfillment of the law".
"ENORMOUS SCOPE" OF THE RULING
The Minister of Sustainable Development, Mercedes Gómez, has remarked that "it is a ruling that issues a doctrine of enormous scope, not only technical, but also political".
"It allows us and supports the Government of Castilla-La Mancha precisely in what it has been defending in recent years. It was really a situation that was squandering the opportunity that the territory of Castilla-La Mancha had to defend its interests," the minister stated.
PP ASKS TO REACTIVATE REGIONAL PACT
The PP deputy Santiago Lucas-Torres has considered it positive that rulings are won and executed, but has criticized that, despite judicial pronouncements, water continues to pass through Aranjuez and Talavera de la Reina and that afterwards "Portuguese irrigators use it," lamenting that "in Castilla-La Mancha farmers cannot irrigate."
Lucas-Torres has called for the Regional Pact for Water to be "truly reactivated," a "pact signed by dozens of entities, by agricultural organizations and by collectives" from the autonomous community which, he has denounced, remains "locked away."
VOX ASKS TO ORDER THE DEBATE
The Vox deputy Francisco José Cobo has urged to "order this debate well" considering that "technical, legal, and political concepts are being mixed."
After recalling that Castilla-La Mancha has "a storage capacity of more than 6,900 cubic hectometers," but suffers "problems and restrictions year after year," he has defended the need to "store, know how to regulate, and interconnect to be able to absorb these imbalances."
"The problem is not only that there are not enough dams or that there is too much water in some places and not enough in others. The problem is that the system is not conceived as an integrated whole capable of adapting to the variability of the resource," the Vox representative explained.