Soraya Rodríguez, MEP, also calls for sensitivity in the demands made on Spain regarding land use emissions, given the special effects of climate change.
Soraya Rodríguez, MEP for Ciudadanos and spokesperson for environment, has asked the European Commission for additional aid to Spain in the face of the drought suffered in the country since autumn. SHe asked the Commission to not limit itself to redirecting funds that already exist, because it affects to 22 million Spaniards, with the reservoirs on average at 44% and the possibility of losing 80% of the olive harvest in Jaén.
This Thursday, the European Parliament’s plenary session held a debate on the worrying drought in the Iberian Peninsula, in which the Equality Commissioner, Helena Dalli, and the Cs MEP Soraya Rodríguez intervened on behalf of Renew, but with the absence of Spanish spokespersons for the PP and PSOE despite the serious situation and after having used the Spanish field in the recent electoral battle in Castilla y León.
The liberal MEP has exposed the situation in Spain to the Commissioner. “The water stress suffered by Europe clearly shows that the consequences of climate change are unequal and asymmetric. Most of the European population that suffers from drought lives in the south, 22 million in my country, Spain, who have looked at the sky since autumn because the rains have dropped by 35% ”, she affirmed.
Dalli has reviewed in plenary the different aid that the European Commission makes available to the Member States, but the Liberal MEP has replied that in addition to using the mechanisms that already exist in Spain, she is going to need new ones. The Guadalquivir basin, for example, is at 28%, and the Murcia swamps are at 22.3%. The national average of the last 10 years exceeds 60% of dammed water, but now it is at 44%.
“This means that the dry crops are very affected and in the spring the situation can be tremendous, the farmers of Jaén can lose 80% of the olive harvest, if not everything. Help is going to be needed, commissioner, but additional help, not just what we have”, added Soraya Rodríguez.
But in addition, the MEP has requested the Commission to be sensitive to the effects of climate change in our country. “We are the most ambitious in asking for measures against climate change because we are the most affected, but we want realistic plans,” she warned.
Specifically, she has denounced that the Regulation on the absorption of emissions from the use of land places Spain in terms of requirements as the second country behind Sweden. “It is not normal – Soraya Rodríguez has criticized – that a country affected by desertification in large parts of its territory is the second most forced to these reductions. I ask you to be sensitive, to take into account the unfair asymmetric distribution of the consequences of climate change in the south”.
