The president of the Valencian Generalitat, Carlos Mazón, and the president of the Popular Party, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, are directing all their forces to present the Government of Spain as responsible for the catastrophe of management of the effects of DANA on the 29th of October that has claimed more than 210 human lives in the province of Valencia, but also seven in Castilla-La Mancha and one in Andalusia. Feijóo, because he says that Pedro Sánchez’s Executive should have taken manu militari the Valencian self-government to manage an Emergency that meteorologists had been warning about for a week. And Mazón, because he considers that he did not have and does not have all the State resources he needs. The reality of private messages and calls between members of Pedro Sánchez’s Government with the head of the Consell is different.
On October 29, the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, wrote after 10:00 p.m. to the President of the Generalitat to inquire about the situation of DANA and to make himself available to him, according to the sources consulted by elDiario.es. Mazón, who already had the UME after requesting it first for Utiel at 3:00 p.m. and then for the entire province at 8:30 p.m., replied that everything was correct and – as the president of the Generalitat himself said later – to ask him “ coordinate as much as possible.” Previously, up to four ministers and a Secretary of State had contacted Mazón and his Minister of Justice, Salomé Pradas, to receive instructions and put resources at their disposal, since the powers in Emergencies belong to the Generalitat. On October 30, a fifth minister, Diana Morant, wrote to Mazón to offer her collaboration, this time as general secretary of the Valencian socialists. In this case, “to offer stability,” they explain from Morant’s team, which has already announced that it will approve Mazón’s budgets for 2025.
The first to be in contact with Carlos Mazón was the Government delegate, Pilar Bernabé. After Mazón arrived at the Integrated Operational Coordination Center (Cecopi) from his copious meal with journalist Maribel Vilaplana, the president was informed of the entire situation. At that time, the UME was already mobilized in Utiel and shortly after, with Mazón already in Cecopi, it was requested for the entire province. Between 7:35 p.m. and 8:20 p.m., the Minister of Ecological Transition, Teresa Ribera, tried to contact the president of the Generalitat Valenciana through three phone calls that received no response. It was at 8:20 p.m. when the vice president and aspiring European commissioner sent him an SMS proposing: “Tell me anything we can help with.”
This message from Ribera sent from Brussels was published on social networks by Mazón himself to complain about how late the Government reacted. “The president of the CHJ is restless but driving with maximum caution. Marlaska and civil protection in it. Aemet following evolution,” she tells him. Mazón shared it on Twitter with the message: “Enough manipulation. This SMS [se mandó] at 8:20 p.m. after sending the alert and without coverage at Cecopi. “That’s what happened.” Mazón forgot to mention the three previous calls that he did not answer, hiding behind the lack of coverage at the 112 Emergency Center in l’Eliana.
There was also a subsequent call. As Ecological Transition sources explained to elDiario.es, after the SMS, the vice president’s team managed to locate the president through the mobile phone of someone who was next to him and who physically sent it to him. The minister herself explained in the SER the content of the conversation: “It was a short conversation: ‘President, what happened, how can we help you and what do you want us to do?’ He told me: ‘The situation was going well, but it got out of hand this afternoon. Forgive me, I’ll call you in 10 minutes.’ That was the conversation we had. Logically, he didn’t call me again, which I understood perfectly.”
Hugo Morán, Secretary of State for the Environment who reports to Ribera, also contacted another member of the Mazón Government, the Minister of Justice, around 8:00 p.m. that day. Morán, when the vice president could not locate Mazón, called Salomé Pradas to inform her of the serious situation of the Forata dam. The Secretary of State was in Colombia on a work trip. The problems in Forata, which opened its floodgates, were what forced the alarm message that was launched at 8:12 p.m. and that had been prepared since 6 p.m.
The first vice president of the Government, María Jesús Montero, was the next to intervene and called Carlos Mazón at 9:03 p.m. In this case, Montero said that he had the Minister of the Interior, Fernando Grande-Marlaska, and the Minister of Defense, Margarita Robles, at his side and that the Government would make “everything necessary” available to him. Mazón, according to the various sources consulted and according to what the regional president himself said on Monday, told him that everything “was looking very bad.” The president of the Generalitat would have also requested that the Interior and Defense troops be mobilized to intervene. At that time, the UME and the State Security Forces and Corps in the province of Valencia were mobilized.
After 10:00 p.m. messages arrived from President Sánchez putting himself at the disposal of the Generalitat and to which Mazón responded cordially and informed him that everything was correct. Mazón has assured that in that message he asked Sánchez for “maximum coordination.”
That night the Government of Spain established a crisis committee to monitor DANA in Moncloa in which, in addition to Montero, Grande-Marlaska, Robles and Ribera via videoconference, the Minister of the Presidency and Justice Félix Bolaños participated. The first meeting took place at the offices of the Department of Homeland Security in the Moncloa Complex. Early in the morning of Wednesday, October 30, the Minister of Science and Innovation herself, Diana Morant, contacted Mazón by message to make herself available to him as leader of the Valencian socialists. Mazón thanked the message. Since that contact, Morant has sent a CSIC ship to Valencia to collaborate in the search for bodies and has announced that he will support the 2025 budgets that Mazón presents for reconstruction.
The passage of ministers through the affected areas has been important in recent days, the last one being Ángel Víctor Torres, who this Tuesday was presiding over the Cecopi together with Mazón.
With this battery of calls and messages from vice presidents, ministers and the Secretary of State, the Government’s apathy that Mazón argues is difficult to defend. Feijóo’s proposal for intervention of the Generalitat by the Government has a better explanation. But that meant the dismissal of Mazón, which the head of the Consell himself resists.
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