Save the bats: the objective that unites PSOE, UP and PP a few hours after the campaign

The protection of game animals sowed discord, but the conservation of bats has united the forces of the Congress of Deputies (except for the abstention of Vox) a few hours after the start of an electoral campaign that is guessed in the face of dog. The penultimate week of the plenary session has allowed the approval of the law for the prevention of losses and against food waste, has given rise to the disapproval of the Minister of Transport, Raquel Sánchez —already previously censured by the Senate—, and has united PSOE, PP, United Podemos or Ciudadanos together with the rest of the chamber to improve the protection of the only mammals capable of flying.

With 279 votes in favor, two against and 57 abstentions, the Lower House has ratified the agreement on the conservation of bat populations in Europe, drafted in London in December 1991, almost 32 years ago, as well as the amendments to the agreement incorporated in Bristol, in 2000. Deputies from different parliamentary groups showed some astonishment after the plenary session, to later sell the importance of the agreement. Its 14 articles, to which the amendments are added, oblige the signatory states to prohibit the capture, possession or deliberate death of these animals, unless authorized “by the competent authorities”..

It also establishes the need to delimit the important places for their conservation, with the intention of avoiding the disturbance of the areas “important for their food”, and even urges the adoption of measures to “sensitize public opinion about the importance” of their protection.. It also includes a call to develop research programs related to the care, use and conservation, to study the possible effects of pesticides, and to replace “chemical products for the treatment of wood that are extremely toxic for these animals”..

“They are very vulnerable animals, but they are also great predators of mosquitoes, and they do a good job of maintaining environmental balance,” says Juantxo López de Uralde, from Alianza Verde, within the United We Can group.. A veteran socialist deputy precisely points out the importance of these animals when it comes to preserving the harmony of ecosystems, and the vast majority of forces in the parliamentary arc agree on this. The PP, which did not renounce charging against the Government and against Bildu for including those convicted for their links with ETA in their electoral lists, ended up voting in favor.

The discordant note was from the Vox deputy Alberto Asarta Cuevas, contrary to Spain giving up “its effective competence” to determine “the conservation status of bats”. “Don't miss it,” he added, considering the signing of this agreement an “erosion” of Spanish “sovereignty”. Even so, they ended up abstaining.

Why has it taken 32 years to join an agreement already signed by almost 40 States, some outside the Old Continent? “Due to lack of political will,” summarizes Uralde. On February 28, the Council of Ministers decided to refer this agreement to the Cortes Generales; It was registered in the Lower House on March 2, qualified five days later, and subsequently forwarded to the Foreign Affairs Committee, which issued the favorable opinion that today has been endorsed in plenary session. “There is a lack of environmental culture in our country”, the green deputy abounds. “We have a record of delays in the ratification of international conventions, animal welfare took 27 years”, criticizes.

According to the numbers that Uralde presented in 2017 in a parliamentary question, almost 40% of all threatened mammal species in Spain are bats.. Then, they estimated the cost of signing this agreement at 128,000 euros, to be disbursed in four years: “Just the presence of bat colonies in agricultural areas returns about 165 euros per cultivated hectare, by making many liters of insecticide unnecessary,” they argued..

The last plenary session before the campaign, during the next week, does not anticipate high voltage either, despite the third proposal to fail Minister Sánchez. A Congress out of focus due to the proximity of 28-M will rule on the start of the processing of a PSOE bill to improve the protection of live organ donors for subsequent transplantation. Also on another PL of the Popular Party “for the change of the model of election of the Members of the General Council of the Judiciary and the strengthening of judicial independence”, with no sign of prospering. And it will give the green light to the bill that creates the “Independent Administrative Authority for the Defense of Financial Clients for the out-of-court resolution of conflicts between financial institutions and their clients”.

After the 12 international agreements ratified this Thursday, with a turn of interventions of just 20 minutes, it will not be necessary to support more agreements of this type before 28-M. In fact, almost a quarter of those minutes were used by the deputy Joan Baldoví to star in his last intervention before delivering his minutes. After 12 years of activity, the Compromís candidate for the Valencian Generalitat took the opportunity to thank. He was applauded by the left, with PSOE and UP standing, and even by several PP deputies. He didn't mention the bats.