During her consideration in the European Parliament to become Executive Vice-President of the Commission, Therese Ribera This Tuesday he defended his performance during the DANA in Valencia, saying that Your ministry sent all relevant alerts on time. The current third vice-president of the government has thus implicitly held the government responsible for Carlos Mazon for not having warned citizens in time to protect themselves from flooding, which, according to her, was her responsibility.
Ribera also blamed the 2008 economic crisis on the fact that the previous socialist government of José Luis Rodriguez Zapatero will not carry out the public works necessary to prevent the risk of flooding in the localities affected by DANA. “It’s bad luck that the crisis has reduced investment capacity in these projects. The resumption of these projects since 2018 allows us today to put a large number of them out to tender,” we excluded.
The failures in the response to DANA crept in from the start in the examination in the European Parliament by Teresa Ribera, who began her intervention by referring to the victims of “the worst disaster in decades”. Ribera defended that the EU must intensify its efforts to decarbonize its economy, improve its adaptation to climate change and “strengthen alert and protection systems”.
First of the MEPs to question him, the German conservative Markus Ferbercriticized him for still not giving explanations to the Spanish Parliament about his actions within DANA. Then, the spokesperson for Vox in Brussels, Jorge Buxadeaccused him of being “responsible” for the Valencia tragedy because He had information and “did nothing”. “For us, he should not sit on the Commission, but on a bench,” he said.
“It was up to you to have avoided the dramabecause you are responsible for preventing, preparing for and responding to climate disasters. She is responsible for investments in river management, flood prevention and climate warning (…) This is why I am sure that history, and perhaps also the judges, will judge her for her inaction and his incompetence. “Do you agree to resign if you find yourself legally involved so as not to bring discredit to President Von der Leyen and the entire college of commissioners?” asked the leader of the PP in the European Parliament, Dolors Montserrat .
In a response mostly in English, Ribera responded to Montserrat that the central government had the responsibility to “issue weather alerts and track water flows in real time“As in other decentralized states in Europe, the regional government is responsible for generating alerts to citizens and adopting measures to protect people,” he added.
“The alerts (which corresponded to the Government) were sent on time. In fact, many institutions, in accordance with these alerts from previous days and at 7:30 a.m. on October 29, decided to cancel all their activities, as University of Valencia or local authorities of many cities. This has not happened with other local authorities“, specifies the vice-president in charge of the Ecological Transition.
“I emphasize the importance of taking into account the distribution of powers between national and regional governments. It is not the factual warnings or predictions that have failed. It is the notices addressed to the population, the measures to protect the population that have failed. And this is not the responsibility of the national government.. The national government was ready to help and was already working very early in the morning, as were many local authorities and public and private institutions, which took note and adopted the necessary measures,” Ribera insisted in another response.
