The Minister of Transport and Sustainable Mobility, Óscar Puente, admitted that there was 48 hours immediately after the DANA disaster in Valencia where “doubt arises (within the executive) when we see that the Valencian Generalitat is showing signs of confusion”, but it was ultimately decided not to take command “while weighing the pros and cons”.
In an interview published this Sunday “The Avant-garde”Puente states: “Taking command immediately can have an effect in front of the gallery, very positive for us, for the Government. There are many people who like “manu militari” gestures; the government is banging its fist on the table”, but they ultimately believed that “after these first hours, it was going to be counterproductive, because the administration that knows the territory best is the autonomous administration”.
For the minister, “A significant portion of the deaths could have been avoided,” But as for the material damage, he thinks that they are more complex, since it is “a very extreme DANA that damaged 40% of the territory of the province of Valencia” and given that it is difficult to knowing “what type of hydraulic planning is involved.” should have been done to avoid such enormous damage.
In the interview, the minister avoids commenting on the management of Valencian President Carlos Mazón “for responsibility and efficiency”, but he speaks out on the PP’s accusations against vice-president Teresa Ribera. “The accusations fall by their weight, given the amount of information that Aemet and the Hydrographic Confederation of Júcar have made available to those who had to make decisions regarding civil protection,” says Puente, for whom these complaints have a lot of “politics”. strategic” and regrets that “in this case, they have gone too far, because they transfer their political concerns to the European institutions”.
Asked about next year’s accounts, the minister replied that “To claim that the reconstruction of Valencia is not linked to the budgetary scenario is very childish and irresponsible.” “We cannot call for a national emergency, as the PP does, and at the same time deny the link between this situation and the approval of the budget,” adds the minister, optimistic about its possible approval by the investiture partners .
Puente assures that the investments that the Valencian territory will require will not harm the works of the Mediterranean Corridor, which must become a “reconstruction tool” and “a mechanism of economic reactivation”. The minister also refers to the expansion of Barcelona’s El Prat airport, for which he is confident that a solution will be found, because it is “a project that Catalonia needs.”
