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As you will all remember, on 29th October 2024, the Mediterranean coast of Spain experienced a violent atmospheric phenomenon (now known as a ‘low pressure system or depression at high levels of the atmosphere’, DANA, although traditionally in Spain it has been called a cold drop), which is known to all Spaniards, and which repeatedly occurs every few years. Violent rain in the Mediterranean basin that ‘activates’ dry river beds or small streams, unleashing floods that sweep away people and property.
In 1957 one of these floods took the lives of hundreds of Valencians, causing the previous regime in Spain to carry out an extraordinary hydraulic project consisting of modifying the natural course of the Turia river (which overflowed that year) and taking it towards its mouth without risk to the city.
These atmospheric phenomena have been known to historiography since at least the 18th century. Santiago Abascal, leader of VOX, made famous the author of a book that in 1795 already documented overflows of the Rambla del Poyo, a minor riverbed that brutally overflowed on 29 October, dragging behind it mud, cars, people and millions of tonnes of plant debris from uncleaned riverbeds.
I am not going to dwell on the responsibilities of the government of Pedro Sánchez, or of the regional government of the Partido Popular in the region of Valencia.
I bring up these notes because the intervention of an official of the European Commission yesterday in the Committee on Petitions of the European Parliament has gone viral in Spain, where he revealed that Pedro Sánchez, the socialist who governs Spain, rejected the aid and solidarity of other member states of the European Union.
A young Spanish woman had submitted a request to the Parliament’s Committee on Petitions, as a citizen, for the Kingdom of Spain to activate the European Civil Emergency Mechanism and for funds to be released quickly for the reconstruction of the affected villages.
During the debate, the European Commission took the floor and explained that the Mechanism had not only been requested 10 days after the events, on 8 November 2024, but that it had also rejected the aid offered by four Member States that had formally offered it. The Commission confirmed that only the aid offered by Portugal and France had been accepted, rejecting the European solidarity of four other Member States.
This is an extraordinary scandal. Criticism of the European institutions for their inefficiency, overspending and slow decision-making is not unusual. But this time the model did not fail. This time the mechanisms created by the institutions did work, but the morality of a prime minister who took advantage of the tragedy of hundreds of human lives and thousands of buildings or vehicles to harm a regional government did not work.
The Spanish press has not reported much on the matter. Only some digital media; although on social networks the intervention of the European Commission official has caused a great scandal. Even today, reconstruction work is still going on; and of course thousands of affected Valencians (vehicles, homes, shops and schools destroyed) are still unable to go to school and are still waiting for the direct aid that the authorities have promised and which is forcing them through an infernal bureaucracy, multiplying the effects of the hell they lived through for many days due to the slowness and inefficiency of the response to the floods.
In short, horrible news that demonstrates how an unscrupulous politician can do so much damage to a nation like Spain. The polls, little by little, show that it is a government adrift. All the parties – socialist, separatist and communist – that support the government of Pedro Sánchez are losing support. VOX is growing unstoppably and the Partido Popular, it seems, is holding its own. There is always hope.