The Government approves an aid package of 2,190 million to the primary sector due to the drought

The decree of the anti-drought plan approved this Thursday in an extraordinary Council of Ministers amounts to a total of 2,190 million euros. The direct support measures for the agricultural sector are quantified at 784 million, although the Minister of Agriculture, Luis Planas, has made progress since these aids may be reviewed depending on how the situation evolves.. Of the direct aid, 355 million euros will go to the meat and dairy farming sectors, 276.7 million for agriculture and five for beekeeping.

The decree also extends the subsidy to agricultural insurance already contracted to cover 70% of the cost of the drought insurance policy in rainfed crops and contemplates flexibility measures in the application of the new PAC, such as the extension to 30 June of the deadline for submitting aid applications. On the other hand, investments in infrastructure have different items, such as 700 million euros in priority actions in the basins most affected to improve water resources, such as desalination plants or reuse of urban water..

Today we approve measures to protect agriculture and deal with drought.

It is time to listen to the science and the experts, and to accelerate a just ecological transition that leaves no one behind.

— Yolanda Díaz (@Yolanda_Diaz_) May 11, 2023

From the Executive they have insisted that this package is “complementary” to the aid for the sector already approved, such as the reduction of 1,807 million euros in personal income tax to 828,000 farmers and ranchers or another 650 million in extraordinary direct aid for livestock sectors and citrus to alleviate the cost of fertilizers, as well as the promotion of agricultural insurance with 257.7 million euros in 2022 and 317.7 million in 2023.

The prolonged situation of drought in Spain, with an accumulated rainfall of 50% of the normal average since the beginning of the year according to Aemet (in April it was only 22% of the normal average), is mainly affecting the Guadalquivir, Guadalete and the inmates of Catalonia. Despite the fact that the water reserves are at 48.9% of capacity, the Government assures that they are in a position to ensure the supply in the coming months after the approval of this shock plan.

Government partners, however, consider that more ambitious measures should be taken and the second vice president, Yolanda Díaz, has focused on the need to modify the water law “to avoid water cuts in rural municipalities”. Through her Twitter account, the also leader of Sumar has opted to launch “public water banks” to make “a fairer and more reasonable distribution of water”.

From the PP, who have described this aid package, approved the same day the campaign officially starts, as “electoralist” and demanded the convening of a Conference of Presidents to address a national pact on water. A demand that the government spokesperson, Isabel Rodríguez, has already rejected due to the electoral context and defending the forums in which these measures have been discussed, such as the Drought Table. Moncloa sources also recall that currently “there is already a great water pact”, in reference to the hydrological plans worked on for four years and “with more than a hundred meetings” with territorial administrations, users and social organizations.

Neither Genoa nor the barons of the PP entered yesterday to criticize the substance of the measures approved in the extraordinary Council of Ministers this Thursday, but they did not hide their discomfort at the fact that the Executive has “ignored” for months the proposals they have made different autonomous communities to alleviate a “borderline situation” in their respective territories, and now try to claim the revenue from these proposals just two weeks before elections that are decided regionally and locally. The Minister of Agriculture, Luis Planas, has responded that the measures adopted are the necessary ones and also those agreed with the regional administrations and the sector.

From the PSOE, they unlink this aid package from the electoral strategy that they have been maintaining with different announcements focused on different target audiences, such as housing policy or the recent discounts for young people to travel by train in Spain or Europe.. “There is a drought and the Government has to offer solutions,” they argue. The socialist barons will already celebrate this Wednesday an initiative that will give them oxygen among the electorate linked to the primary sector. Both the like-minded and the most critical of Ferraz.

Pedro Sánchez gives ammunition to his territorial leaders to sell these measures during two key weeks, thus trying to retain the vote of the countryside and close the way to the PP in an issue, such as the water war, which the popular have capitalized as a weapon. Sanchez, at the same time, seeks to neutralize the potential mobilizations in the countryside, channeling them through dialogue in the Mesa de la Sequía, since several of the demands launched in this forum will be part of the anti-drought plan.