Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I welcome the fact that this House has had another opportunity to talk about the Spanish water plan and about Community legislation, and I say another opportunity because, as you will recall, a total of three oral questions have now been put in my name on this issue, but I also regret that in the end the initial question agreed with the groups was not included on the agenda in its original form, and was replaced by these individual questions. Returning to the content of the previous answers from Mrs Wallström, I must point out to Mrs García-Orcoyen that I am surprised at the sudden change of position that there appears to be between the Commission’s reply to us and what the honourable Member says she was told. I would like to ask Mr Liikanen to clarify this on behalf of Mrs Wallström. Mrs García-Orcoyen said, as was reported by various Spanish media, that the Commission had answered to her that the Spanish plan did not violate Community legislation. I must ask you, honourable Member, not to distort the Commission’s position. What Mrs Wallström has been saying is that the Commission has not made any statement on whether or not the Spanish national water plan violates Community legislation because it considers it to still be a draft and that it cannot therefore make a decision, as it does not have all the necessary information to rule on this. I ask you please, Mrs García-Orcoyen, not to say something that is not true. However, regardless of whether or not the Spanish national water plan, as it stands, violates Community legislation, we are going to take a brief look at it, not only because of the effects of the planned work on LIFE areas, on fauna and flora (and I thank the group for picking up this issue from my previous questions) but also because of many other aspects that can be seen. Would you like an example? The framework directive says that no movement of water can take place unless there has been a rigorous prior assessment of the need for it and unless all the possible alternatives have been exhausted. Yesterday in Spain we found out that the government is now considering reducing the transfer from the Ebro by half through measures such as saving water in agriculture and re-using it. We strongly doubt that this reduction is a counter-proposal. It seems more like an alteration of concessions in order to ultimately distribute the same volume of water. However, whatever the case, it goes without saying that measures such as saving and re-using water are considered to be fundamental in the alternative plan put forward by our party the Partido Socialista. If the transfer could supposedly have been done from the start with the same amount of water that is now being proposed – i.e. half the amount – does this not show that the government did not look into all the socio-economic implications, the alternatives and the availability of the resource in detail before its proposal? Meanwhile, you are aware that the framework directive says that participation from citizens is very important and, so far, associations such as ADENA, Ecologistas en Acción or groups of experts have not received an official response to their very well-documented allegations. Let us also talk about the deterioration of water, which is dealt with in Articles 1 and 4 of the framework directive. These articles establish the objective that the current state of water should not deteriorate, and it also says that this should be complied with from the entry into force of the directive, i.e. 22 December 2000. This implies that the current Spanish national water plan is not compatible with the framework directive because, as the work involved is planned, there will undoubtedly be serious changes to ecosystems and to the quality of the water. Finally, allow me to briefly explain the Group of the views water management. We believe that water is a common resource and therefore something that is governed more by solidarity than by market forces. Any water plan should be more than a series of infrastructures and transfers. Transferring water should be the last resort, to be done only when all possible alternatives have been exhausted and when it has been proven that it does not damage the environment. Any water management measure should be accompanied by parallel plans on irrigation and forest resources, and taking into account climate change. I am aware that there is a great deal more that I could say, but I can assure you that what Mrs Wallström did say in the February part-session is that the European Union will never fund, and will never agree with, any plan that does not respect the environment. (Applause)

Political group: PSE