Government and opposition fail to reach agreement on fight against drought

The Catalan government and the different parliamentary groups failed to reach an agreement on Friday night to fight against the current drought situation after a meeting that lasted four hours.

Held in the executive headquarters, the cabinet led a summit on the water crisis, but the gathering ended without any agreement as groups did not agree on the proposal made by the cabinet.

The government wanted to ratify the decree approved last week in the parliament with the abstention of the different groups. However, the cabinet included a potential sanction for municipalities that did not comply with the water restrictions. These sanctions did not have the support from the opposition.

"After a lot of work and an intense week of meetings, there was a will to reach an agreement," Catalan climate action and agriculture minister Teresa Jordà said during a press conference after the summit.

But after hours and several meetings, no deal was reached because of several negatives, including sanctioning municipalities from July 1, as the government had proposed.

"We got a pre-agreement with several modifications to the decree," but there "was a lack when reaching bigger deals," Jordà said.

"This is not the message we should give to our citizens," she added.

As a new decree was not reached, the current one passed by the Catalan parliament last week remains in place with no date to start sanctioning municipalities across the territory.

One group that openly opposed the possibility of sanctioning municipalities, including delaying a starting date to send fines, is the Socialists.

"It is a huge mistake sanctioning municipalities, as no mayors across Catalonia are deliberately wasting water," Silvia Paneque, from the Socialists, said after the summit.

"It is a mistake not looking for an institutional collaboration between city councils and the government, and it is also a mistake to point fingers at specific groups, including farmers, the tourist industry, or even city councils," Paneque added.

Something shared by the opposition party Junts, the former junior coalition partner until October, as they also say that "cooperation between several administrations is necessary," Albert Batet, spokesperson for Junts, said.

"We need time and financial aid to help city councils prepare to fight the situation," Batet added.

Sanctions have been the reason why there was no deal reached. However, the "summit was already late" for the far-left CUP party, as it should have been organized earlier, Eulàlia Reguant, CUP spokesperson, said.

"We have met for over three hours, and the summit has become a failure," Reguant added.

In fact, the delay that the summit was held "30 months after the drought season started" did not go unnoticed by En Comú Podem spokesperson Jessica Albiach.

For her, the reason why the "meeting was organized was only that the executive had difficulties in passing their decree to fight the drought in parliament, which opposition already considered not enough," she added.

The People's Party considered that the summit "ended worse than it started," as no agreement was made as "the government continues to push for sanctions," Daniel Serrano, an MP of the group, tweeted.

Reservoirs at 27%

After weeks without heavy rain, reservoirs in Catalonia are at 27% of their capacity, according to the Catalan Water Agency, as of March 31, 2023.

Some of these reservoirs have had to organize fish culls to avoid dead fish contaminating the drinking water.

Learn more about one of these reservoirs, 'Pantà de Sau,' in our Filling the Sink podcast episode.