The reintroduction of the urban planning moratorium in the Mar Menor Protection Law continues to be an element of confrontation and political strategy between the two main parties represented in the Regional Assembly: PP and PSOE. The Socialist Group withdrew on the fly in the plenary session this Wednesday its bill to reform article 16 of the regulation in force for three years for the recovery and protection of the salt lagoon. It intended to reintroduce the extension of the deadline to prevent new developments in the four riverside municipalities until the final approval of the Territorial Planning Plan for the Mar Menor Catchment Basin, as contemplated by the law in its origin.
But in the middle of the debate, the socialist deputy Manuel Sevilla announced that he was withdrawing the bill to resubmit a new one that would be processed by a single reading, to simplify and speed up the procedure. The change in strategy seeks a statement from the Popular Party, despite the fact that it also agrees to reintroduce the moratorium into the law. But both parties disagree on the way to do it, on a clear strategy to score a political victory. According to the popular Víctor Martínez-Carrasco, “if there is now no urban moratorium that protects the Mar Menor it is thanks to the arrogance of the PSOE” and added that the decision to withdraw its proposal is evidence that technically “it was poorly planned.”
Meanwhile, the reality is that parliamentary planning contemplated bringing said legislative change to debate and vote on November 15 and, with the change of script, the calendar will change and there will be a new postponement. To begin with, the new bill must reach the Assembly Table for its admission for processing and the Board of Spokespersons must establish a new calendar, which would already be in November.
In the debate, Podemos and Vox were critical of the Mar Menor law and the reintroduction of the urban planning postponement. For the left-wing party, the rule falls short, it speaks of “sloppyness” and denounces that in this entire context there are interests of the PP to benefit “its friends in the real estate sector.” For the conservatives, the law is restrictive, it does not solve the environmental problems of the Mar Menor and regarding the moratorium they consider that it suppresses the urban planning rights of citizens.
The urban planning moratorium was included in the Mar Menor law, approved by the Assembly in July 2020, but for a period of three years, which was the period that said regulation granted to the Community for the drafting of the Territorial Planning Plan for the Basin. Slope. As this document is still being prepared, the postponement expired at the end of July. Since then, the PP and the PSOE have tried to reintroduce it. The president of the Community, Fernando López Miras, did so by a decree that the Assembly did not validate: PSOE, Vox and Podemos voted against. Then came the PSOE bill that is now up in the air. Meanwhile, there is a legal vacuum that would allow the reactivation of some of the urban projects that have been in process for years in the riverside municipalities and that have been paralyzed for at least three years.
On the other hand, the Assembly approved, at the proposal of the PSOE, a proposal for the creation of a special study commission to combat poverty and social exclusion in the Region of Murcia. Also a motion from the PP, amended by Vox, rejecting the processing of a possible Amnesty law, as well as a proposal from the latter party to request the Government of Spain to increase the number of positions for resident internal psychologists in the Region and the reinforcement of the National Mental Health Strategy.
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