The Board will meet next week with the European Commissioner for the Environment and asks for "alternatives" for Doñana

MADRID/SEVILLA, 21 Abr. (EUROPA PRESS) -

The president of the Junta de Andalucía, Juanma Moreno, stated this Friday that his Minister for Sustainability, the Environment and the Blue Economy, Ramón Fernández-Pacheco, will meet next week in Brussels with the Commissioner for the Environment, Virginijus Sinkevicius, to transfer the content of the bill that is being processed in the Andalusian Parliament on irrigation in the northern crown of Doñana and with the willingness to receive proposals.

In statements to journalists in Madrid, Moreno has insisted on defending the content of this bill, after the Prime Minister, Pedro Sánchez, yesterday demanded a "rectification" and a return to "European legality".

"A government has to find solutions to problems and there is a serious problem here", as indicated by Moreno, who wanted to make it clear that the initiative that is being processed in Parliament and about which "many lies" have been told, leaves clear that "we cannot touch the water from the subsoil" and proposes a "reordering of a territory in a situation of legality that has families and workers trapped in limbo".

He has stated that if the central government does not agree with the content of the proposed law, it should suggest what its "alternative" is and they will be willing to study it. He has regretted that the national Executive has "never" wanted to sit down to talk about a "problem" in that region that "exists and is a reality" and to which a solution must be found.

Regarding the next meeting with the European commissioner, he has stated that they are open to receiving all the proposals he deems appropriate: "If you have to give it a spin or be more flexible on something, without any problem" because it is currently a project law and not a government decree.

He has insisted that they are also willing to listen to the proposals that the central government wants to make, which until now "has not wanted to sit down at the table in a serious way to be able to talk about what is the alternative to the plan that we have proposed".

Moreno has stated that his Government has made the decision to seek a solution, which is based on a "balance between protecting the park", which is a "legal and moral obligation", and resolving an endemic problem in some cultivation areas the one that we cannot "cross our arms".

After stating that the Las Tablas de Daimiel National Park, in Ciudad Real, also has a drought problem and the Sánchez government does not act with the "same virulence", Moreno has wondered why the president is leaving, five weeks from the elections of May 28, with this "campaign" against the bill that is being processed in Parliament. "He comes in Falcón to take an electoral photo in Doñana" without committing to put resources or carry out the works that are the responsibility of the State and that are included in the 2018 Transfer Law, according to Moreno.

In relation to the processing of the bill, he has indicated that all the sectors involved will go through Parliament, that they will make their contributions, and that it is a matter of achieving a text with the "greatest consensus possible". He has regretted that the attitude of the national Executive is to use this issue to "make it profitable in electoral terms."

"Sánchez is doing electoralism and cheap and that is why he is turning against him," said the president, who has criticized the "pilgrimage" of ministers in Andalusia and that they also go to Brussels to "speak ill" of this community and of the farmers and to criminalize the irrigators. He has asked Sánchez to "stop trampling on us in Andalusia" and has been convinced that if this had been done in the Basque Country or in Catalonia, "we would not see any of this dust."

He has indicated that for 35 years "many atrocities have been allowed" in the Doñana environment by former PSOE-A executives. He has stressed that, on the other hand, his government has decided to propose a solution to a problem and not "idle arms".