Adopted at an extraordinary Council of Ministers, these measures were taken on the eve of the official opening of the campaign for the municipal and regional elections on May 28, where this issue of water promises to be central. This has led the right-wing opposition to accuse the executive of electoralism.

Spain is facing a dramatic drought, with the level of the country's water reservoirs - which store rainwater for use in the drier months - falling in the first week of May to 48.9% of their capacity, the fifth consecutive weekly decline.

Published on Thursday, the new report of the country's main agricultural union, the Coordination of Organizations of Farmers and Breeders (Coag), gives a dramatic picture of the situation of the agricultural world, which is only getting worse, since according to him, "the drought is already asphyxiating 80% of Spanish agricultural land" and that "more than five million hectares of non-irrigated cereals" have suffered "irreversible losses".

However, the figures of the previous report of the Coag, published on April 13, spoke of 60% of the land "asphyxiated" and 3.5 million hectares of cereals affected.

- Addressing water scarcity-

The country experienced last year its hottest year on record, with several scorching heat waves, according to the Public Meteorological Agency (Aemet).

"Spain is a country used to facing periods of drought, but due to climate change, we have a much greater incidence of increasingly frequent and intense episodes," Ecological Transition Minister Teresa Ribera told a news conference.

Teresa Ribera, Spanish Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Ecological Trasition and Demographic Challenge, in Aznalcazar, Andalusia, May 11, 2023 © Fernando CALVO / LA MONCLOA/AFP

The mere fact that these emergency measures were the subject of an extraordinary Council of Ministers devoted to this single subject illustrates both the urgency of the situation and the importance attached to it by the government of Socialist Pedro Sánchez.

Of the approximately €2.19 billion in the plan, just under two-thirds (€1.4 billion) is to be used to build new infrastructure to address water scarcity in some regions, including seawater desalination plants and systems to increase wastewater reuse.

Ribera said the goal was to increase the proportion of wastewater reused from the current 10 percent to 20 percent in 2027.

The remaining third (€784 million) will be dedicated to agricultural support, of which almost half (€355 million) will take the form of direct financial support to livestock farmers and milk producers, partly offsetting their rising costs.

A sum of 276 million will go to crops and areas that the Ministry of Agriculture estimates are most affected by the drought.

"Bamboozler"

Finally, €40.5 million will be used to subsidise 70% of the cost of drought insurance policies taken out by farmers.

In this regard, the Minister of Agriculture, Luis Planas, stressed that compensation to compensate for the losses suffered by farmers due to the drought had already reached 300 million euros since the beginning of the year.

Spanish Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food Luis Planas in Aznalcazar, Andalusia, May 11, 2023 © Fernando CALVO / LA MONCLOA/AFP

The lack of water has led many farmers to abandon spring planting, especially of cereals and oilseeds, with the risk of causing shortages and a further spike in food prices, whose sharp rise is already one of the main components of inflation, which rose to 4.1% in April.

Ensuring the continuity of food production is therefore also a political priority for Pedro Sánchez, as general elections will be held at the end of the year and the campaign for the municipal and regional elections on May 28 starts this Friday.

Greenhouses as far as the eye can see in El Pozuelo, near Granada, southern Spain, March 31, 2023 © JORGE GUERRERO / AFP/Archives

The leader of the right-wing opposition People's Party, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, reacted to the millions released by Mr Sánchez for farmers by accusing him of wanting to "bamboozle" them in the run-up to the elections, after having neglected them for five years.

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© 2023 AFP