The President of the Community of Madrid, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, announced on Monday that the regional executive has sued the country’s government before the Supreme Court over the preparation of the hydrological plan of the Tagus. As EL PAÍS reported in March, the regional administration considers that the decree regulating the use of water from this basin is contrary to Madrid’s interests, which is why it has been preparing this judicial offensive for six months. In this way, the Community of Madrid joins the water war in which the regions of Castile-La Mancha – where the water is collected -, Andalusia, the Community of Valencia and Murcia – where the water is collected – have been engaged for years. and that they have also announced their appeal to the Supreme Court.
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“Sanchez’s obsession with Madrid knows no bounds,” said Díaz Ayuso during an intervention this Monday in which he did not take questions from journalists. “Now he wants this region to surrender out of thirst,” he accused. “A royal decree has been passed that endangers the water supply of almost seven million people.” [de personas]”, has added. “He has drawn up a hydrographic plan for the siege of Madrid by the Tagus that does not bow to its abuses,” he continued.
“The new hydrological plan changes the rules and boycotts Madrid’s water supply system, which is the largest in Spain and one of the best in the world,” he continued. And he concluded: “There is nothing worse than trying to ration water for seven million people.” Considering that Sánchez has already done his worst, he always surprises us with something new.”
The core of the conflict lies in the Valmayor reservoir, which, with a capacity of 124.4 cubic hectometers, is the second largest in the Community of Madrid. According to the regional government, 1.7 million Madrid residents depend on it for drinking, 25% of the population. And the new rule requires prior approval from the state for the reservoir to receive water from the Alberche River via the San Juan-Valmayor diversion.
The Ayuso government expects the legal battle could last four years, according to the 35,000 euro contract it tendered to find a firm to defend it in court. This agreement, which can be viewed on the regional contract portal, details the points of conflict between the two administrations.
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Therefore, the Canal de Isabel II is aware that its interests will be compromised in terms of “maintaining the priority principle of water use to supply the population at all times and especially in situations of drought or scarcity”; the “establishment of prior authorization to carry out a transfer between reservoirs of different exploitation systems of demarcation”; “a regime of ecological flows in water bodies”; the “impossibility of establishing ecological flows to the Las Nieves and Pozo de los Ramos dams due to a lack of regulatory capacity”; or the “lack of justification of the identified production flows”; the “lack of definition of the quality parameters and conditions of the defined ecological flows”.
The inclusion of Madrid in the water war exacerbates the institutional conflict between the regional and national governments. Since Díaz Ayuso first came to power in August 2019, the Madrid executive has gone to court against twelve state decisions of all kinds: from the management of the pandemic to curricula to financial policy.
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