Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2001-03-15-Speech-4-022"
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"en.20010315.3.4-022"2
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"Mr President, I wish to begin by congratulating those who have formulated the oral question that has been tabled on its relevance, importance and timeliness. Water is a product that is essential to life itself. It is also a strategic factor for development and, as such, is an issue that concerns everyone, a point that has already been emphasised here and rightly so. If we accept this view, then today we must develop a joint vision for the planning and management of shared rivers. At European level and within the United Nations, the Helsinki Convention and, more specifically, its protocol on the protection and use of cross-border rivers and international lakes, represent a framework of international law that contains this vision and these new principles.
As is well known, Portugal has played an active role in the drafting of the directive on water management, in an attempt to ensure that priority was given to fundamental aspects concerning the protection and sustainable use of water, bearing in mind the climatic and geographic conditions of the Iberian Peninsula. It should be understood that Portugal has indeed played this active role. Portugal and Spain are in quite unequal positions, given that we are a downstream country, in other words, Portugal has no rivers that flow into Spain, but Spain does have rivers that flow into Portugal.
Furthermore, when managing their water resources, our neighbours may adopt measures that affect Portuguese interests, but there is nothing that we, on the other hand, can do in terms of our water resources that would directly affect Spanish interests. The joint management of shared hydrological basins within the framework of international law imposed by the directive that I have already mentioned, is therefore a fundamental approach, which must govern the behaviour of those with political responsibility for this particular sector, both in bilateral negotiations and in a multilateral framework.
I feel that Spain’s new hydrological plan is a step in the right direction, since it has stopped decanting water, mainly from the Douro and Tagus rivers, which are shared between Portugal and Spain. The directive in fact constitutes an extremely important protection network, since it adopts the coordination of the measures for hydrological basin management from the standpoint that these are not considered to be units defined by administrative or political borders. With the aim of establishing an integrated water management system which will make the best use of the appropriate objectives for the specific conditions of the European Union’s regions, the regulations of the framework directive will facilitate the implementation, both now and in future, with the cooperation of national governments, of hydrological plans that take account of such important factors as water quality, the preservation of sufficient water flows, the climate and the protection of biodiversity and the environment."@en1
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