As a partial requirement for the obtention of the Master of Arts in European Studies
Table of Contents
1.Presentation
1.1.The Ebre Delta and the SNHP
2.Objectives
2.1.Structure
3.Advocacy
Coalitions and Spanish Waters
3.1.The Spain
Water Policy-Making Subsystem
3.1.1.Hydropopulism,
Transition, Ecosystems
3.2. For or Against the Water
Transfer
3.3.Policy Change and Learning
3.3.1.Windows of Opportunity for a New Water Culture
4.Agenda
Setting in the European Union
4.1. Who Sets the Agenda in
Environmental Matters
4.2 Public Procedures and Access to Documents
4.2.1.rhus
4.2.2.The Role of
Information and Communication Technologies
5.Legitimacy
Shortcomings
5.1.The EU and its Democratic
Deficit
6.Actors
in the EU sphere
6.1.The European Parliament
6.1.1.Committe on the
Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy
6.1.2.The Greens
6.2.The Council of Ministers
6.3.The European Commission
6.3.1.DG Economic and
Financial Affairs
6.3.2.DG Environment
6.3.3.DG Regional Policy
6.3.4.DG Internal Market
6.3.5.DG Agriculture
6.4.The European Court of Justice
6.5.The Interest Groups: Lobbies,
Regions and Civil Society
6.6.Europe Concluded
7.Conclusive
Assessment of the Dynamics
8.References
and Sources of Bibliography I
Figure 1
Table 1
[ back home | languages | opinions | send me a comment ] |
1.Presentation
A water-scarce country like Spain has always tried to
intervene in the rivers. Ever since made possible by the technological advances
brought by Romans, Mores, and later the Industrial Revolution, and despite
hostile topography and uncertain finance, Spaniards have constantly sought to
expand irrigated land, multiply canals, build up dams. This urge for new,
ever-increasing water infrastructures was further fed by a movement of
engineers known as regenerationism. They held a clearly
developmental agenda, in the context of this impoverished and illiterate empire
of the end of the 19th century, in full decay after the loss of its
last colonies of Cuba, Puerto Rico and the Philippines.
Some
decennia later, general Franco mastered hydro-populist
formats and policies. He turned Spain into one of the
countries with biggest reserves per person and per km2. He also blocked
the historical evolution of the previously accepted ideas, which has had
undeniable consequences in the transitional progression of this policy field up
until now, almost 29 years after the dictators death. A large deal of
legislation and political developments (Table 1, below) have been put
in place to guarantee stability in this sector of policy-making, where strongly
diverging views co-exist.
On July 5th, 2001, a statute was passed by the
Spanish Congress and amended by Senate, shortly later to be backed and sanctioned
by the Head of State. It would become famous as the Spanish National
Hydrological Plan (SNHP What one can easily detect from the isolated textual
analysis of this piece of legislation, is just explicit formal respect for all
of the European legislation (to which it refers on several occasions). Plus,
one can see no further motivation other than what is depicted as an
all-encompassing corrective action for a country marked by severe water
unbalances due to its irregular distribution, flawlessly based on
Article 45.2 of the Spanish Constitution of 1978.
The
aftermath of the enactment at stake, notwithstanding the aforementioned,
deserves closer observation. Article thirteen of the act foresees new
ordinary transfers from the Ebre to four other river systems of the East coast
of Spain. Up to a total annual
volume of 1,050 hm3 were set to be detracted (figure 1). This would
entail an enormous operation, with over 850 accompaniment projects, such as
dams, power stations, waterworks, secondary channels and the like. It awakened
the immediate contestation of the practical totality of the affected donors.
These are
mainly to be found in Arag (where dams should be
made bigger), and Catalunya (where the river reaches
the sea). It furthermore propitiated an unprecedented mobilisation of
ecology-minded citizens and organisations, a large deal of scientists and most
political groups, against the Plan proper and the way it was
being executed by the one party in power, the Popular Party.
I shall
hereby argue the importance of the EU level in this debate. One perspective
used is that of agenda-setting, important insofar as it determines how problems
are framed, and who gets involved in their resolution. The aim is to carry out
an assessment on who and under which conditions has been granted access (or
fought for it) to the agenda-setting and the decision-making procedures. We
intend to finally determine how legitimate the political outcome may be rated,
having regard of the already announced features of the social and institutional
mobilisation for and against the SNHP.
Of high potential
profile is the role to be played by the EU Institutions in Brussels and Luxembourg. A critically large sum
of money (ca. 30 percent of the official estimated cost: 4.1 billion ) is set to be released out of
Community budget, to finance this pharaoh-like piece of engineering. Some
actors in the European arena have voiced their reservations towards, or their
frontal opposition against, financing what may, as not few claim, entail an
infringement of in-force EU Law.
For their
part, some others have unreservedly and diligently engaged in working it past
the European stage of debate and back to Spains domain priv, if we may still contemplate
such a reality in the years to come. Years marked, as they seem bound to, by
the integrative moves, in an increasingly uniform space, where internal
frontiers disappear, people will be able to freely establish wherever they want
to, and more harmonised standards will apply.
Whereas
this is an already old battlefield for Spanish politics, we shall focus on the
way this issue has been raised to the European agenda to try and predict what
the fate of the SNHP shall be in the years to come. The future of the Ebre and
of the water supply of south-eastern Spain seems thus at any rate dependent
on the stance adopted by those in charge of Eurocracy.
1.1.The Ebre Delta and the SNHP
The Iberian peninsula owes its name to its biggest river,
nowadays known as the Ebre. It springs from Fontibre,
in northern Cantabria down to Catalunya,
in the Mediterranean Sea. Its final Delta and some neighbouring villages
constitute what is known as Les Terres de lEbre. These comprise a population of over 157,000 people, a large
proportion of whose livelihoods directly depend on the environment, i.e. rice plantations,
rearing of shellfish, and so on, all carried out in the wetlands assured by the
watercourse.
The
deltoid platform is relying on the river to contribute with upstream sediments
that keep the sea from advancing, so that the cultures in place do not succumb
to salted water, which already happens for some months a year. One
of the most important bird habitats in the Mediterranean,
second most important Special Protection Area for Birds (SPA) in Spain,
[] listed among Ramsar
areas and part of the Natura 2000 network, this is a
paramount hub of biodiversity in Europe.
After the
SNHP was passed, big water was set to flow southwards into incipient
agro-alimentary exploitations, satiate coastal conurbations in need and feed a
flourishing demand for luxury in tourism, Spains leading sector. An
integral, state-wide management plan would once and for all see the light,
excessive water would be re-conducted, and a large infrastructure designed and
built; the greatest piece of investment ever carried out altogether in the
country.
As
advanced, Catalan and Aragonese made it to the
streets in sociologically relevant numbers: 400,000 in Saragossa; 300,000 in Madrid; 250,000 in Barcelona; 30,000 in Valncia; more than 10,000 in Brussels. And they have repeated
in each of these and some other cities (Arrojo Agudo, 2003:8-9; Pont Vidal, 2002:37). Movements and platforms
have mushroomed, actions have been organised: blockades, human chains, general
strikes in the Pyrenees, and even hunger strikes.
Almost
each of the facts and arguments that those mobilised protesters have struggled
to bring to the fore was intended to raise awareness of the inappropriateness
of the project. It would allegedly become unbearably harmful for some
environmentally or socially disruptive matters (some people would have to leave
their houses). They have also argued that cheaper and better solutions are
already available to tackle the water supply shortages to come. Or they have instead
tried to challenge the legitimacy of the Spanish central government,
democratically elected on March 12, 2000.
At the
other side of the fence, however, in some of the recipient regions, the
additional inflow is largely applauded by what is commonly referred to as
public opinion. This was most visibly in tune with agricultural, tourism or
urban-development sectors possibilities for those regions (Valncia, Murcia); although with
somewhat important stake by energy producers and large-scale project and
infrastructure developers, too. As it becomes clear, this item of Spanish water
policy has not only generated a social turmoil. It has fostered tough confrontation,
and entrenched against one another the affected communities in a bipolar array.
It has also been raised high on the agenda for all of the political options on
offer, either to stop and dismantle it or to push it through, with observable
electoral effects.
