The Region of Murcia and the Provincial Council of Alicante reinforce their administrative and judicial front against the cut of the Transfer

The Region of Murcia and the Provincial Council of Alicante staged a new step on Monday in the reinforcement of their common front in defense of the Tajo-Segura Transfer, centralized this time in the fight against the proposal of the National Water Council to increase the ecological flows of the Block. The president of the Region of Murcia, Fernando López Miras, and the president of the Alicante Provincial Council, Carlos Mazón, announced after a working meeting held at the Murcian Government headquarters, the Palacio de San Esteban, the signing of a bilateral agreement to go hand in hand in all those administrative and judicial actions that are considered appropriate to try to stop the gradual increase in the ecological flows of the Tagus proposed on November 29 by the National Water Council, from the current 6 cubic meters per second to 7 in 2025, 8 in 2026 and 8.65 on January 1, 2027 and which will mean in practice, according to the regional president, a “50% cut in the Tajo-Segura Transfer.”

The decision entails, according to López Miras, “a new undermining”, another “contempt” for the interests of the Region of Murcia and the Valencian Community, which the Government of the Nation has been materializing, he defended, “decision after decision” until touching ” unbearable limits. “The Region of Murcia cannot survive with this cut, and it would be very difficult for me to imagine that Spain could do it,” he said. López Miras recalled that this infrastructure irrigates 70% of the fruit and vegetables that Spain exports, and that it represents more than 20,000 million euros.

In addition, he stressed that the proposal has been adopted without there having been “not a single technical or scientific report that justifies that increasing ecological flows produces an environmental benefit in the Tagus”, which is why he considered that the only explanation for adopting that position it has to be based on “political and partisan” criteria.

The historic water debt

The agreement implies the commitment to establish a single united strategy of technical and legal analysis of the decisions that are adopted and that may affect the transfers between the Tagus and the Segura. In fact, they announced that they are already working to present allegations to the proposal in the Council of State, from where it will go to the Council of Ministers.

For his part, Carlos Mazón accused the president of the Valencian Community, Ximo Puig, who abstained from the Water Council, and the Murcian socialists, of being accomplices of “the strategy of ending the Transfer” with their silence. And he pointed out that the National Government has created a new historic water debt with the Levant, which has meant the loss of 590 million euros in terms of gross added value, as justified by the reports of the Water Institute, which Professor Joaquín Melgarejo presented in the same act.

López Miras announced that if, despite the reports they have, the Council of Ministers decides to cut the Transfer, the Community and the Provincial Council will go “to the Supreme Court or to any other appropriate judicial instance” to avoid it. The regional president considered that the proposal of the Water Council is “reversible”, and assured that the one who can reverse it is the Government of Pedro Sánchez “taking a different decision in the Council of Ministers.”