Esquerra Republicana will submit to a vote among its militancy the decision on an eventual investiture of Pedro Sánchez. This was decided by the party in a national council held this Friday in which the first scenarios arising from the election day last Sunday were analyzed, in which the pro-independence party lost six seats (it went from thirteen to seven) and 412,000 votes. , close to half of those achieved in 2019.

ERC already carried out a consultation with its bases after the previous general elections. With a participation of 70% of the census, 94.6% of the affiliates approved the strategy proposed by the management, which opted to facilitate the investiture of Sánchez with an abstention if the PSOE agreed to activate a dialogue table between the Government and the Generalitat to resolve the open conflict with the procés.

That consultation, which was not binding, was formulated through a convoluted question: “Do you agree to reject the investiture of Pedro Sánchez if there is no prior agreement to address the political conflict with the State through a negotiation table?” .

On this occasion, during the 23-J electoral campaign, the Republicans linked their support for the investiture of the candidate for re-election to three conditions: continue negotiating self-determination in the bilateral forum created in 2020, end the fiscal deficit that they consider to be suffering Catalonia, and which amount to between 18,000 and 20,000 million euros per year, and complete the transfer of the Cercanías rail service so that the Government can manage it fully (currently, the infrastructure is still in the hands of Adif and Renfe remains the operator, although the Generalitat could choose another company).

Junts and the foreign vote

Unlike four years ago, this time Sánchez needs the Republicans to vote in favor of his candidacy for president, since the most complex and unpredictable negotiation, in which the socialist candidate until now sought abstention, is the one he will hold with Junts for Catalonia. However, if it is confirmed that the PP snatches a seat from the PSOE after the scrutiny of the foreign vote, at least two yeses would be necessary among the seven post-convergent deputies, unless the Canary Islands Coalition also supports the current acting head of the Executive.

For now, Junts has not announced any internal consultation to endorse its position before a hypothetical investiture session led by the PSOE general secretary. However, last October, the party founded by Carles Puigdemont organized a vote among the militancy to resolve another transcendental political decision: the rupture of the government pact with ERC in the Generalitat.

To the question “Do you want Junts to continue forming part of the Government of Catalonia?”, 55.7% of the affiliates expressed their refusal, while 42.4% preferred to maintain the coalition with the Republicans.

The Minister of the Interior, Fernando Grande-Marlaska, has complied with the Supreme Court ruling and has already reinstated Colonel Diego Pérez de los Cobos, whom he removed for, according to him, loss of confidence after refusing to provide secret judicial information. He did not want to reveal the investigations into the 8-M demonstration, held at the gates of the pandemic, which was followed by a court.

With the execution of the ruling, issued at the end of last March, Grande-Marlaska returns the high command to its position as head of the Madrid Civil Guard Command.

The Supreme Court ordered the reinstatement of De los Cobos, whose dismissal has been considered by the opposition as a “political cessation”. The court itself in its sentence reprimanded the minister for “inadmissible interference” in a judicial investigation.

The resistance that the Minister of the Interior staged from the first day to comply with the judicial decision has accompanied him until the last moment, as demonstrated by the delay in executing the sentence.

Interior had two months to restore the colonel but the time began to count from the moment in which the ruling was effectively notified to the Ministry. It was a maneuver – contemplated in the law – to dilate the times and that the return of Pérez de los Cobos took place after the general elections.

After the Supreme Court made its ruling public, the Minister of the Interior slipped formulas so as not to finish validating the decision of the magistrates and prepared the ground to avoid the return of the command of the Civil Guard in the event that the technicalities of the ruling were would allow.

Grande-Marlaska then relied on the fact that she needed to know the textuality of the sentence, since the decision of the judges was advanced but not its content.

“We are going to wait to know the sentence and the technical reasoning of the High Court to dictate the resolutions that are appropriate in parameters and in technical-legal terms,” he said then..

He insisted on making it clear that the colonel did not have his confidence and that the reasons that, according to him, led to the controversial dismissal persisted.. “The Ministry of the Interior reiterates that the substantive reasons that decided the dismissal persist and have been confirmed and consolidated with the elements known later,” he indicated without specifying which elements he was referring to..

Grande-Marlaska avoided mentioning the investigation into 8-M – of which he refused to inform his political bosses – to focus on the management of reserved funds, casting doubt on the command of the Benemérita on account of the Kitchen case. He declared that there was a misuse of the reserved funds, a competence of the area that the colonel directed with several ministers.

«The lack of confidence remains. This type of people is the one in which this Minister of the Interior has not had, does not have and will not have confidence. Would you have confidence in those people who managed the reserved funds and who managed the funds without due control?

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The party founded by Pablo Iglesias has attacked this Friday against the cancellation of the Cadena Ser gathering in which its former leader participated despite being a “successful” space “with more than a million listeners”. “It was the only state-wide radio or television program in which there was a voice from Podemos,” as detailed in a message sent to the militancy by the leadership.

In it, the purple formation denounces that “it is evident that the invisibility” in the media that those who have “like-minded” to theirs “is a decision made a long time ago by those who have power”. They also maintain that “the other parties know that their ideas, their like-minded commentators and their spokespersons will be well protected and represented on Antena 3, La Sexta, Telecinco, La Razón, Abc, Grupo Prisa, etc.”.

“That is why we want to remind you that it is very important that we all support the few left-wing digital television that exists and also the only left-wing television that exists and that Pablo Iglesias and his team, Canal Red, have been able to launch,” they underline in the formation now directed by Ione Belarra.

It was Iglesias himself who reported via Twitter that the 25th Hour Agora will not continue next season. “I want to thank the network, Aimar Bretos, Víctor Olazábal and his entire team for the opportunity and for having taught me so much about radio,” he said in a message posted on his personal account..

In it, he also thanked the fellow members with whom he has shared this space over the last two years, former ministers José Manuel García-Margallo (PP) and Carmen Calvo (PSOE), who have “made an unusual type of debate possible which also had an enormous following”.

Sources from the Prisa Group have confirmed to Efe that the Ágora will no longer be there next season and they have normalized the decision because, as they have argued, the programming changes every year and sections appear and disappear.

Belarra, for her part, has also censored on Twitter the cancellation of this space of Ser. “After years of media siege, the strategy of power to silence Podemos is evident,” he wrote..

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Three unions of the Ertzaintza have denounced the implementation of a “hate” campaign promoted by “anti-system groups” that takes the form of banners and graffiti displayed in the festive areas of towns and neighborhoods in the Basque Country. The police unions Esan, Erne and Sipe warn that groups such as Gazte Koordinadora Sozialista (GKS), Acaba and Sare Antifaxista are using graffiti and banners to generate a “climate of hatred and violence” against Basque police officers.

The three unions have made public today “the growing and worrying increase in crime in our streets and evidence of the culture of contempt and constant confrontation with authority and the Law” after documenting the banners in festive venues controlled by nationalist youth groups. In Barakaldo, a banner proclaims “hate” to the ertzainas who appear represented in an arrest and who are warned that they are “not welcome”. A burning Ertzaintza van is exposed in Amorebieta to promote “hot dogs”.

“We ask the political class to look the problem in the eye and get down to work to find solutions. It is time to put the political and media focus on the offender and not on the Euskal Polizia”, demanded the police officers who specifically demanded the intervention of vice hendakari Josu Erkoreka

A 34-year-old man drowned this Friday in the Picadas reservoir, an enclave where bathing is prohibited and very close to the San Juan reservoir, located in the Madrid town of Aldea del Fresno.

The victim, who had gone to this area where the Alberche River flows with some friends, “disappeared”, according to his companions, who, concerned, alerted 112 Emergencies of the Community of Madrid.

The Red Cross Rescue and Salvage Group and the Underwater Activities Group of the Madrid Community firefighters then went into action, who in a joint operation deployed a search device in the vicinity of this reservoir.

The body, lifeless, was found in one of the dives a few minutes. According to the first investigations, the man would have tried to swim across this enclave, where there are dangerous currents and could have suffered “an accident, submerging.”

The corpse has been recovered and transferred to the shore by the rescue personnel, who have made it available to the Civil Guard.

On social networks, some residents of the area have demanded more vigilance in it, recalling that bathing is prohibited and asking that it not be promoted, by some people, as “Madrid's natural pool”.

This summer the number of deaths in aquatic spaces throughout the national territory is surprising, with 57 individuals having lost their lives in June and 67 so far in July. Figure that increases, if we do the total calculation from January 1 to today, up to 236 victims.

The region's Minister for the Environment, Agriculture and the Interior, Carlos Novillo, warned today of the danger posed by reservoirs, swamps and river banks, due to the false sense of security they offer. And he has insisted that precautions must be taken and bathing only in areas authorized by the Community of Madrid: “You must be very attentive, especially small children. Bodies of water, like reservoirs, give a sense of security, but they are actually dangerous.”

The Swedish multinational Boliden will not have to pay, at least for now, not one euro for the environmental consequences of the accident suffered by the mine that was exploiting in the Seville town of Aznalcóllar. More than 25 years after that catastrophe and after a convoluted and almost eternal lawsuit, the Court of First Instance 11 of Seville has dismissed the demand of the autonomous Administration against the mining company, from which it claimed something more than 89 million euros, the invoice for the cleanup and environmental restoration of the damage caused by the dumping of toxic sludge into the Guadiamar riverbed, which reached the gates of the Doñana National Park itself and had effects throughout Andalusia.

In a sentence that has been released today, the judge knocks down the Andalusian government's claims by concluding that the legislation in force at the time the events occurred did not establish the obligation to restore environmental damage to the owner of a mining exploitation.

The lawsuit used, specifically, the Mining Law of 1973 (modified in 1980) and Royal Decree 2994/1982 as the main arguments that, in his opinion, established the requirement to pay for all the actions that were carried out after the accident. of April 24, 1998 by imposing on the holder of mining rights, in the case of the mining law, that he will be “responsible for the damages and losses that he causes with his work…”. Likewise, the Junta invoked the European principle of 'those who pollute pays' to try to tip the judicial scales in their favour.

But judge José Manuel Martínez not only has not been convinced by the legal reasons of the Board, but has rejected them without hesitation, supporting the position that Boliden maintained and on which he insisted in the judge that was held a few weeks ago in Seville. That is, when the accident occurred, the legislation did not go that far and, of course, it did not require in any case the restoration of the area affected by the rupture of its mining waste pond.

In relation to article 81 of the Mining Law, the cornerstone of the Board's claim, the judge points out that “the scope sought by the regional Administration has not been sufficiently justified” and that, therefore, it does not support its claim .

And in very similar terms he expresses himself about Royal Decree 2994/1982, specifying that what he is talking about is the obligation to restore “in the natural space affected by mining work”, something that would not fit in the case of the Aznalcóllar spill. , which affected more than 4,600 hectares of land.

One by one, the judge dismantles the legal arguments of the Board, including the principle of responsibility for risk and even the European principle of “whoever pollutes pays.”. Regarding the latter, it invokes various jurisprudence to recall that the directive that develops it, 2004/35/CE, is not effective until April 30, 2007 and, therefore, cannot be applied to previous events and the Aznalcóllar disaster. it took place nine years earlier.

The sentence has been notified this Friday, two weeks after the end of the oral hearing of the trial, and it is not final.

Appeal even before the Supreme

The Junta de Andalucía has hastened to announce that it is going to file an appeal against the ruling of Judge Martínez. Thus, the Andalusian Government will file an appeal and, “if necessary, it will appeal to the Supreme Court” (TS), as the Andalusian executive has assured in a statement in which it states that it “respects judicial decisions and, therefore, this sentence” which, as he has remarked, “is not final”, and he has declared himself “convinced of the existence of the responsibility of the Boliden group”.

From the Board they argue that said sentence, “in the face of a case for which there are no precedents or, therefore, jurisprudence or doctrine, stems from a legal interpretation of the regulatory framework applicable 25 years ago that the Andalusian Government does not share.”

Thus, the sentence “denies the sufficiency of said regulatory framework in force in 1998 to protect the claim of the Andalusian community, leaving the question of the responsibility of the Boliden group unpredicted”, warns the Board, which also points out “the unfortunate circumstance, not attributable in no case to the current Andalusian Government, that the autonomous Administration has been forced into 25 years of jurisdictional pilgrimage, since an attempt was made to request responsibilities through civil proceedings, and the same court that has now handed down the sentence declared itself incompetent and took the Board to resort to administrative proceedings, until finally the Supreme Court returned the claim to the Court of First Instance number 11 of Seville”.

From the Board they have also stressed that “both Boliden's responsibility for the consequences of the mining accident, as well as the fact that the breakage of the dam is exclusively attributable to its actions, have already been declared by final judgment.”

Thus, the judgment of the Supreme Court (TS) of November 22, 2004 sentenced him to pay more than 40 million euros for the damages caused to the public hydraulic domain, while that of the same high court of January 11, 2012 resolved “the claim presented by the company against the authors of the projects and executors of the works, from whom it intended to claim responsibility for the breakage”.

Said judgment literally stated that “what is clearly proven is that the plaintiff today who is the appellant managed the waste discharges from the pond, moving away from the projects, mixing waste discharges instead of separating them, injecting liquids into the pond for the that was not projected, building a battery of drainage wells at the foot of the dam, which entails a decrease in the stability of the dam, the plaintiff (Boliden) having made an incorrect increase in it, which necessarily leads to an increase in interstitial pressures , being the direct cause of the rupture of the dam, unrelated to the work carried out by Intecsa, Geocisa or by ACS, Actividades de Construcción y Servicios SA, so it is not correct to hold them responsible for the rupture of the pond, and even less for the damage caused”.

Boliden, in bankruptcy

To what has been said must be added, according to the Board, that Bolidén Apirsa, SL. “It is involved in bankruptcy proceedings in which the bankruptcy administrators have requested the declaration of guilt of the bankruptcy.”

The spokesperson for the Andalusian Government and Minister of Sustainability, Environment and Blue Economy, Ramón Fernández-Pacheco, stated that “one of the main values that the Junta de Andalucía defends today is the absolute respect for our natural environment and, therefore, of course, with the principle that the polluter pays”.

“We are convinced of the existence of a responsibility on the part of Boliden, and we have the firm intention of appealing this sentence, first on appeal and reaching, if necessary, up to the Supreme Court,” he insisted.

The counselor has spoken of “very bad news for Andalusia” and “for the environment at a time when the protection of the natural environment becomes a fundamental objective of our legal system”, and has stressed that the Board “already spent almost 90 million euros to repair the consequences of a mining accident for which the Boliden Group is exclusively responsible”, according to the statement.

Three workers from a pig farm in Tarancón (Cuenca) have been found this Thursday unconscious inside the facilities, probably due to intoxication, and have been evacuated in different health facilities to the Virgen de la Luz Hospital in Cuenca.

The three workers have been found at 2:36 p.m. by colleagues inside the farm, located on Camino de Tribaldos, who have notified the 112 emergency service, which in turn has sent the park firefighters to the place. from Tarancon.

Upon arrival, the firefighters have made a measurement of the air that has been negative, so at the moment the causes that have caused the fainting of the workers are unknown, which is probably due to poisoning, the origin of which has not yet been determined. has determined, sources from 112 in Castilla-La Mancha have informed Efe.

Likewise, these sources have indicated that the firefighters are considering the hypothesis that the three workers have been unconscious in a first inhalation, which has later dissipated because the farm has a forced ventilation system.

One of the three workers, aged 39, has been transferred to the Cuenca Hospital by a medical helicopter, while another whose age is unknown has been taken to the hospital in a mobile ICU and the third, aged 38, in a basic life support ambulance (SVB).

In addition, another SVB support ambulance and an emergency medical team have traveled to the farm to care for the injured, as well as agents of the Civil Guard and the Local Police of Tarancón, indicated 112.