Gerard Melgar Barcelona

Barcelona

Updated Tuesday, February 20, 2024-20:18

  • Catalonia desalination plant will use ships with water from Sagunto in June if the drought remains at the current level

  • Generalitat Catalonia declares a drought emergency starting this Friday for six million people

The

Parliament

's monographic debates have become the setting that most clearly demonstrates the loneliness of

Pere Aragonès

's Government . If, in the last few hours, the Catalan Executive has worked hard to convey that the approval of the regional

budgets

is getting closer, the plenary session of the Chamber that began this afternoon, on

climate change

and measures against

drought

, has reminded the

president

that, even with the public accounts moving forward, his last year in office will not be a bed of roses.

The opposition has criticized the

Esquerra Republicana

Government for its policies to confront the water crisis. A disagreement very similar to the one that occurred almost a year ago at the summit called by Aragonès to agree on measures in the face of a situation that was worsening day by day.

Given the triumphalist speech of the Government, the first secretary of the

PSC

,

Salvador Illa

, has demanded "one more point of humility because the water will come from

Sagunto

." The head of the opposition has referred, in this way, to the possibility that, starting next summer, ships will arrive at the port of Barcelona with water from the

desalination plant

located in this Valencian town.

"The result of the

process

is that Catalonia is today more dependent on water, energy and investments," recalled the socialist leader, who has also blamed former presidents

Artur Mas

,

Carles Puigdemont

and

Quim Torra

.

In the parliamentary session requested by the

CUP

and

En Comú Podem

, the classic "and you more" of political debates has given way, in many moments, to a "I was just passing by" in which ERC and

Junts

have thrown balls out about his management responsibilities in recent years. "Catalonia is paying the consequences of years of drought in investments, of infrastructures that had been deprogrammed," Aragonès has defended himself, ignoring the fact that, since 2016, his party has been installed in the Palau de la Generalitat.

Budgets

The

president

has also boasted, as in recent months, of having managed to "delay more than a year" the entry into the

emergency phase

of the

Special Drought Plan

. Aragonès, in addition, has taken advantage of the debate in the Parliament to launch a bait in order to secure the necessary support to approve the budgets of the Generalitat this year and has announced that

1,045 million euros

will be allocated to investments to alleviate the

water shortage.

.

JxCat, with whom the Republicans shared the Government until October 2022, has accused its former partners, among other reasons, for resorting to State aid. "This Government suffers from

Spanishitis

and at the slightest chance it is going to beg from Madrid," accused deputy

Salvador Vergés

regarding the transportation of water from Sagunto and the State's financing of two new desalination plants.

The

neoconvergents

, in addition, have looked back to also direct their criticism at the socialists and have gone back to the tripartite Government chaired by

José Montilla

(2006-2021) because "it left a debt of 1,500 million in the

Catalan Water Agency

."

The CUP and the

commons

have targeted projects such as the expansion of the

El Prat airport

, the

Winter Olympic Games or the

Hard Rock

leisure complex

in Tarragona,

Vox

has made a speech against the

2030 Agenda

, "the climate religion" or " the

eco-apocalyptic

prophecies ", and

Ciudadanos

and the

PP

have closed the debate with criticism of the "inaction" of the Government.

The plenary session will end on Thursday afternoon with voting on the resolution proposals presented by the parliamentary groups.