EH Bildu has presented twelve amendments to the "Draft law on urgent measures presented by PNV and PSE to simplify and expedite the Administration for sustainable economic activity" and has warned that, if the text goes ahead "without making the necessary corrections," the consequences would be "serious."
The parliamentarian Ander Goikoetxea has expressed his support for "expediting bureaucracy, simplifying procedures, and facilitating economic activity," although he has warned in a note that "this cannot be used as an excuse to undermine municipal autonomy, lower environmental guarantees, relegate territorial planning instruments to a secondary role, or leave the public interest in the hands of private companies."
In his opinion, the priority must be to ensure the autonomy of municipalities and cooperation between institutions, given that "simplifying does not mean centralizing decisions." He emphasized that "the way is to improve coordination between administrations, not to annul municipal competencies, as if municipalities were an obstacle to the processing of projects."
As he has indicated, this is "the underlying idea" in the proposal promoted by PNV and PSE, despite the fact that "the reality is that it is usually the provincial councils, the Basque Government, or the URA agency that delay the processing, not the municipalities."
Resolution of discrepancies and the role of municipalities
Goikoetxea has stressed that any initiative affecting a municipality "cannot be addressed without the participation of its town hall." Therefore, EH Bildu proposes "to strengthen inter-institutional collaboration, respect municipal planning, and establish channels to resolve potential discrepancies."
Furthermore, he has criticized that the text from the partners of the Basque Government "implies modifying the Law of the Biosphere Reserve of Urdaibai." In his opinion, this "is not the way to reform a law of such significance," since a modification of this type "requires extensive political and social debate."
The abertzale representative has emphasized that a norm of such relevance "cannot be changed without a sufficient process of analysis and participation," since "guarantees and broad consensus are needed." For this reason, he has urged PNV and PSE to withdraw that section from their proposal.
The parliamentarian also reproaches both parties for intending to "open the door to the development of projects of superior public interest by private companies, allowing them to reclassify and expropriate land."
He has insisted that "giving a project the character of superior public interest cannot become a way to evade territorial planning" and has reminded that a project of this type "cannot replace a Sectoral Territorial Plan." For this reason, he demands the removal of that article, since those projects "must also take into account the effective participation of the municipalities and regulate very well when and how public interest is applied to a private project."
Goikoetxea has also warned that the proposal from PNV and PSE "endangers" public control of ecological production, by changing the current model of supervision and certification and allowing "to delegate this function to private companies."
In general terms, EH Bildu maintains that the legislative initiative of PNV and PSE can lead to "legal uncertainty," given that "mixing very different issues in a single law can generate doubts in the interpretation of the norms, in the competencies of each administration, and in the processing of the projects." He concluded that "simplifying bureaucracy cannot come at the expense of legal security, environmental guarantees, or the participation of municipalities and citizens."