Ximo Puig reproaches the Government for “wanting to unilaterally break” what was agreed in the Water Council: “It cannot be understood”
The General Attorney of the Generalitat Valenciana prepared, at the request of the Consell, a report that serves as a legal basis to urge the Government to respect the draft royal decree “in the same terms in which it was approved” by the National Water Council, the last November 29, and that “guarantee the continuity of the Tagus-Segura transfer”.
Thus, the document points out that “there is no legal or technical justification” for changing the criteria agreed in the Water Council and, therefore, ensures that “it is not necessary to increase the ecological flows as they pass through Aranjuez, which will guarantee the arrival of water from the Tagus to the Segura basin».
The report by the Generalitat Advocacy “dismantles the arguments” put forward to try to justify a last-minute change in relation to the criteria for setting ecological flows, in which the Secretary of State for the Environment, Hugo Morán, appeals to a series of judgments of the Supreme Court on the subject, as indicated by the Generalitat in a statement.
In this sense, the Generalitat’s Attorney’s Office carried out a “detailed analysis” of the doctrine issued by the High Court and concluded that “at no time has the Supreme Court ruled on the increase in ecological flows, but only indicates that there are to fix them.”
“What’s more, it indicates that when establishing them, a series of variables must be taken into account, not only ecological, but also socioeconomic, and that the setting of these flows cannot be done in an indicative manner and without due justification,” says the document.
The report ensures that these are the principles on which the ninth provision of the draft royal decree is based, whose maintenance, the Generalitat regretted, the Government is now questioning. Thus, this provision establishes that, “if the environmental objectives set for these bodies of water are met with the measures applied, it will not be necessary to apply the steps provided in the hydrological plan as of January 1, 2026.”
In other words, the Lawyer’s document points out, “it will not be necessary to increase the ecological flows as they pass through Aranjuez, which will guarantee the arrival of water from the Tagus to the Segura basin.” For all these reasons, the Consell understands that “there is no legal or technical justification, as the report of the Advocacy endorses, to modify at the last moment a text that was approved by a large majority in the National Water Council.”
“It can not be understood”
After hearing the conclusions of the report by the Lawyers, the ‘president’ of the Generalitat, Ximo Puig, has defended, in statements sent to the media, that the Generalitat “has always acted in good faith” because “since the confrontation and the war will not get water to Alicante”, for which he has criticized that “it cannot be understood” that what “was legitimately agreed” now “want to break unilaterally”.
“The Generalitat is not willing in any case to go through this situation,” he stated, stressing that the document “clearly endorses that there is no reason or virtuality that makes a change of position reasonable with respect to what was legitimately agreed upon in the Council of the Water».
«Dialogue is the way to achieve success that is neither more nor less than what is essential: that the Tagus-Segura transfer continues in force, but that at the same time progress continues in the ability to have all the resources available to have water forever,” he added.
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