The Minister for the Environment and Climate Action said on Wednesday that the Portuguese Environment Agency (APA) is holding “permanent meetings” with its Spanish counterparts on the drought within the framework of existing agreements between the two countries.
Portugal is having a very difficult year, Spain is having a very difficult year. We are aware that both countries are being affected by the issue of drought. There have been permanent meetings between the APA and the Spanish counterparts on the follow-up of the responsibilities of the existing agreements. We will always defend our country for the best use and respect for conventions”, said Duarte Cordeiro.
Duarte Cordeiro, who appears this Wednesday in the Environment and Energy Commission of the Assembly of the Republic, was responding to a question from the deputy of the Left Bloc Pedro Filipe Soares about water management and its scarcity in Portugal.
The minister referred to the blocist deputy that “the existing difficulties on both sides” will be evaluated, recalling that in summer there was always “a very complicated situation regarding the Tagus.”
“We had the opportunity to draw Spain’s attention to this, to reinforce the flows,” he added, noting that, from the point of view of the Albufeira Agreement, there are daily, monthly and annual flows, and “short-term flows they have complied”.
“So the question is whether we can ensure that the flows throughout the territory are met at the convention. We will evaluate at the end of the process.”, he is stressed.
Duarte Cordeiro reiterated that both Portugal and Spain have “clear difficulties”and that in addition to our country having to “demand compliance and have mutual respect” between the countries, Portugal will also have to reinforce the response in its territory, not being “only dependent on an external solution”.
The deputy Inês Sousa Real, of the PAN, also questioned the minister about the review of the Cooperation Agreement for the Protection and Sustainable Use of the Waters of the Luso-Spanish Hydrographic Basins, known as the Albufeira Agreement, in force since January 17 from 2000 . .
“Objectivelyit is very evident that in very difficult years of drought like this one, in both countries […] revising the convention was very complex and difficult. We must seek to assume the responsibilities of both parties […] and try to reinforce in some way the answers that our country has, in addition to those that already exist through this same convention”, Duarte Cordeiro highlighted.
Some 3,000 farmers from the provinces of León, Zamora and Salamanca demonstrated this Monday, in the center of the city of León, to demand that the transfer of water to Portugal under the Albufeira agreement be ended.
The Albufeira Pact, signed by the two countries on November 30, 1998 for the administration and use of water in the five river basins they share, including the Douro, regulates the protection and sustainable use of their waters.
As a result of this agreement, the two largest reservoirs in the Duero basin –Almendra, on the Tormes river between Salamanca and Zamora, and Ricobayo, on the Esla river, in Zamora, both intended primarily for hydroelectric production– will have to give Portugal more than half of the water it currently has in reservoirs.
The agreement provides for the shipment to Portugal of some 870 cubic hectometres of water stored in Spanish reservoirs in the Duero basin, of which some 650 come from these two large reservoirs.
Thus, in the next two weeks, before the end of the current hydrological year on September 30, Spain must have complied with that agreement and, for this, it must give the Portuguese Duero basin the stipulated minimum amount of reservoir water in the agreement signed in November 1998. .
Source: Observadora
