With a growing death toll, which already far exceeds 150; with dozens missing, searched tirelessly by families and police forces; with towns devastated by thousands of tons of mud, with the ruins of buildings and bridges and with thousands of cars piled up in its streets; with tens of thousands of people without water and without electricity; with devastating effects in the territories of several autonomous communities; With looting and dozens of arrests, in a shameful spectacle for a European and developed society, where is the State? Who is in charge of the Civil Guard, the National Police and the Armed Forces? Who has the constitutional power to assess and whether it is necessary to decree the state of alarm in the Valencian Community? Who has the power, under the Law of the National Civil Protection System, to require the mandatory collaboration of citizens and companies to deal with emergency situations? What authorities are competent over essential infrastructures such as the A-3, the A-7, the AVE, the Cercanías network or the Valencia airport? The answer admits no doubt: the central government.
It cannot be the Valencian president, Carlos Mazón, the authority responsible for coordinating all the human and material resources required for the response to the DANA that devastated Valencia and surrounding areas, and other autonomous communities seventy-two hours ago. Mazón and his administration will have to give, when appropriate, explanations about the operation and effectiveness of the regional alert system in these tragic days. But the mobilization of the State does not have to wait for any request from Mazón, for example, to deploy Army units, assume national civil protection powers or agree on the necessary legal measures to intervene directly on the ground, without jurisdictional excuses. So quick that the Government of Pedro Sánchez was in imposing a state of alarm only for the Community of Madrid due to a wave of Covid-19 and now it hesitates before the DANA of Valencia, which is the opportunity to take the reins and behave like the political leader of the country, in the face of what is clearly an emergency with national repercussions.
The central Executive cannot act as a spectator of the tragedy, nor as a facilitator of favors to the Valencian Generalitat. It does not have to offer help, but rather assume its obligations without delay, because it is the competent authority, exclusively, on essential chapters of this tragedy. The legal and political responsibility of the Pedro Sánchez Government is to restore the AVE lines within a reasonable period of time, which is not the three or more weeks that Óscar Puente has announced. A period that takes months as far as the Cercanías network is concerned. Something unbecoming of a developed country. And the same with the large highways that connect the Levant with the center of the country and the Mediterranean, from north to south. It is not only about recovering a minimum of normality in road and rail transport, but also about minimizing an economic blow in the affected area that will undoubtedly hamper its development seriously for a long time. Of course, insurers must rise to the crisis of companies and families and promote diligent execution of the coverage provided in their credit policies.
The dimensions of the tragedy call, to put it graphically, for a military response. The Armed Forces have the capacity to deploy machinery and specialists such as those needed by roads, towns and citizens. The commendable rescue work carried out by the Military Emergency Unit (UME) must give way to an enormous task of cleaning, repairing and reopening transportation and communication infrastructures, even if it is provisional, for which only the Army is preparedas demonstrated in Madrid with the Filomena storm. The extent of the response was summed up by King Felipe VI, by making his security service available to the Ministry of the Interior, and to the Ministry of Defense, the Royal Guard, over which His Majesty has direct command. This is not the time to be content with symbolic announcements, but to be effective and demonstrate that the power that corresponds to the central government is to be exercised, not to be enjoyed or displayed. The State must appear en masse in Valencia and in the other regions affected by DANA.
#ABC #Editorial #State
