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.