The president of the Junta, Juanma Moreno, and his party, the PP, which has an absolute majority in Andalusia, the most populous and therefore decisive territory, have begun the political course that will lead to the municipal elections in May next year, that the PP already has in its viewfinder, with a clear objective: pave the way for Alberto Núñez Feijóo on his way to Moncloa and continue with the erosion of the PSOE in Andalusia, which was until 2018 a fetish territory of socialism.
President Moreno, in his line of selling moderation, while his heralds do the hard speech work, announced that he will convene the rest of the parties this Thursday to try to find agreements in the face of a panorama full of “uncertainties” in Spain. The president asked the opposition for realistic proposals and stated that his intention, as long as he has an absolute majority, is to hold meetings, dialogue and share with the rest of the political forces, to propose “things together.” Moreno, in that line of good cop surrounded by bad copsHe added that the best way to win the municipal elections is to forget about political campaigns and do the work of the Government.
Thus, Moreno’s new lieutenant, the advisor to the Presidency Antonio Sanz, who was Javier Arenas’s main collaborator for several years and who was in the PP machine room at the beginning of the ERE case, has already set the direction of the offensive, which can be summed up on two main fronts: the drought is Pedro Sánchez’s responsibility and the pardoning of former President Griñán implies that the PSOE is incapable of recognizing what happened: heavy caliber ammunition, amplified by the loudspeaker of the Board of Andalusia.
Sanz said two things this Monday morning. On the one hand, he was very harsh against the PSOE and also, by extension, against José Antonio Griñán’s family, which is the one that has requested a pardon for reasons of equity and humanity. For Sanz, the PSOE tries to “justify the unjustifiable” and the pardon is “difficult” to understand: “It seems that rather the PSOE is being pardoned with something that has been very serious. The pardon is difficult to understand when the PSOE does not recognizes what happened nor has he asked for forgiveness”, according to Europa Press. Over the weekend, Sanz had said: “Pedro Sánchez should organize a tour of the towns of Andalusia to apologize for the ERE”.
However, Sanz’s speech is more about politics, a strategy of attrition than reality. The general secretary of the Andalusian PSOE, Juan Espadas, despite Sanz’s proclamations, has not supported the pardon: “I owe myself to the party’s code of ethics, much more for being the general secretary of the PSOE-A,” he said a few days ago about this issue.
Swords wants to form an alternative government, talk about management, form an opposition in his style, towards the center, and abandon the discussion about the corruption of the past. This Monday he defended that the debate on pardon must be “away from the political positions” of a party like the PSOE and its public officials, because the opposite means, in his opinion, doing “a disservice” to said request for measure of grace.
the drought
On the other hand, the drought, according to the reports studied this August by the Andalusian Government, is deep. In Doñana, the Santa Olalla lagoon has dried up due to a combination of factors “related to overexploitation and drought,” according to the director of the Doñana Biological Station, Eloy Revilla, this Monday on Canal Sur Radio.
But for the Andalusian Government, what the Sánchez Executive does is useless: “Everything is reports, there are no new projects, and it is disappointing. It is not normal for communities to be neglected in this matter.” The PP opposes, in the face of the attitude of the central government, a “foreseeing” work of the Board that it affirms, has led to the approval of two decrees against the drought. “They call us to report on how things are, we already know that, what we want are investments,” said Sanz.
In the afternoon, after the Board of Directors of the PP in Andalusia, in which Moreno announced that Loles López was leaving, to dedicate himself exclusively to the Government, the general secretary of the party in the hands of the Cordovan Antonio Repullo, the president abounded in this speech, in the one that demanded works from the Government of Spain: “If not, we are going to have to cut off the water to the farmers,” Moreno threatened.
The Andalusian Government is in that speech despite the fact that it has not finished renouncing the plan that the PP presented the last legislature with Vox and Ciudadanos to expand the potentially irrigable areas in the surroundings of Doñana, an issue that generated great concern in the European Commission . The PP continues to defend in this context of drought a “balance” between economic activity and the defense of Doñana.
For the director of the Doñana Biological Station, the issue is clear: “In a situation in which there is no water and what little there is is being used, it makes no sense [continuar con ese plan]”. On the contrary, “we must consider how to act in a future in which the situation is going to become chronic: as soon as we move to this new normality in which the exceptionality is going to be the years in which it rains a lot, the amount of water is going to be less, so we have to act accordingly”.
The situation
On August 22, 2022, according to the Board, “the hydrological situation of the intra-community demarcations that are the responsibility of the Andalusian Board were at 35.7% of their capacity.” “For its part, the Guadalquivir Demarcation, under state jurisdiction, was at 22.5% of its capacity. As for the exploitation systems that are in an emergency situation, Viñuela-Axarquía and Cuevas de Almanzora are targeted in the Mediterranean Basins and Dañador, Martín Gonzalo and Sierra Boyera in the Guadalquivir demarcation”, states a report from the Andalusian Government.
The Board’s document warns that, “if the situation of low rainfall continues throughout the first quarter of the new hydrological year (last quarter of 2022), it will be necessary to analyze the evolution of the indicators established in the drought decrees of the Board and, depending on the degree reached, adopt the corresponding measures: Given the level of its reservoirs, the areas that require special attention are La Viñuela, which is currently in an emergency situation; Cuevas de Almanzora, in a situation of scarcity serious (emergency) due to the interruption of the Negratín-Almanzora transfer, and Campo de Gibraltar, which would again be in a situation of severe scarcity (alert) but very close to emergency. Likewise, the Ministry of Water highlights in the report the complicated situation in where the irrigators of the Benínar region (Campo de Dalías) are.
“As for -he adds- the exploitation systems of the Guadalete-Barbate hydrographical district, emphasis is placed on the state of Guadalete, which could enter a severe situation; while Barbate, would reach serious scarcity. For its part, if If the situation continues the same in the coming months, the possibility of declaring a severe shortage in the exploitation systems located in Tinto-Odiel- Piedras should be considered”.
The PSOE of Swords
The PSOE led by Juan Espadas, meanwhile, after the defeat and the turnaround predicted by the polls, tries tooth and nail to defend the activity of the Government of Spain from the attacks of the PP, and at the same time give an image of a constructive alternative, with proposals that delve into the centrality that the new socialist leader wants to occupy, such as a reduction in personal income tax, a “autonomic relief in personal income tax to alleviate the increase in interest on mortgages for families with incomes of up to 40,000 euros in joint taxation and 35,000 individual “, in addition to facilitating access to nurseries for families with children.
Thus, Swords has wanted to focus the issue on Andalusia and wants a working group in parliament to study the effects of the drought and manage measures to be taken. He seeks to bring the issue of the drought to Parliament and focus the discussion on what Moreno is doing and thus take pressure off Sánchez.
The socialist leader stressed that the Board has powers “exclusively in the intra-community basins” of the autonomous community, which affect the “water consumed by 60% of the Andalusian population.” The Andalusian Government says that it only has power over 37%.
On the criticism of the PP, Espadas has wanted to make it clear that the Andalusian PSOE “claims” the execution of “each and every one” of the hydraulic works declared of general interest by the State that are “pending” in Andalusia, and is going to ” demand that they continue to be executed” or “those that have not been executed be promoted”, but as leader of the Andalusian opposition he has the “obligation” to demand that the Board “fulfill its powers”.
In this regard, he encouraged “reviewing the level of execution” of the 17 works that the Governing Council chaired by Juanma Moreno agreed in 2020 to declare of regional interest and of which “he assumed that he had to carry them out urgently” , according to Europa Press. Swords assured that these works “are far from all” those that the Board would have to undertake, and “in the provinces of Granada, Malaga and Jaén not even any of those that were declared of regional interest have been executed.”
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