Would the response to the floods caused by DANA in several Valencian regions have been better if emergency powers were entrusted, as in the past, to the central government and its delegates (formerly civil governors)? Under the impact of the enormous tragedy, taking into account the fact that the emergency system for which Carlos Mazón, president of the Generalitat Valenciana, is responsible, reacted late, in a failure that will go down in history, we are tempted to consider this possibility. And, for consistency, the temptation is great for the government to apply the mechanisms provided for by law to separate the autonomous administration and directly assume disaster management.
But there are many reasons not to give in to this temptation. The most important thing is that it wouldn’t solve anything. The second, and no less, that it would be a type of movement without going back and which would have an impact on the structure of the autonomous state as a whole. This is also why it is a possibility that appeals so much to the revolutionary far right. A senior official of the Generalitat Valenciana in the previous Botanical Pact administration, very critical of the way in which the current PP Council handled the emergency, explained to me that “recentralization” would make us return to obsolete systems, structurally more ineffective. models. “The problem is not the distribution of powers, but the incompetence of those responsible,” he added.
The President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, is aware that removing the Valencian President from the operation would open an institutional crisis at the least opportune moment and would fuel a form of political victimization that is in no way compatible with the real victims who have lost family and friends and had their lives devastated. Normally, the response from the Central Executive must be supplemented by that from the Regional Executive. This is how the mechanism is designed. Currently the feeling is that the government must carry out part of the functions that the Consell de la Generalitat Valenciana has not been able to organize. Maintaining cooperation, allocating all resources and strengthening an emergency structure weakened by those responsible seems the most responsible thing to do.
Given the new risk challenges posed by climate change, it is essential to strengthen local response mechanisms as well as those of a broader nature. The unification of the provincial fire services into a single autonomous body, for example, was one of the measures pursued by the creation of the Valencian Emergency Unit that the PP and Vox so frivolously rejected during the first month of the government of the Generalitat Valenciana. Can we imagine what would happen if, in the event of a disaster, firefighters, local police, members of civil protection and other emergency personnel, in addition to the national police, civil guards and military, were directed from Madrid to outside the autonomous government? What kind of dysfunction would this create?
The State has three levels: local, regional and central. Any adequate emergency response requires cooperation at multiple levels to work, here and everywhere else on the planet. President Sánchez insisted that we must respond to this tragedy together. This statement did not prevent him from mentioning, in passing, that it would be time to settle responsibilities and clarify “negligence”. In the Valencian misfortune it is necessary to know how to distinguish the aptitude of the institution, the capacity for command and management of the means and protocols. Come on, the problem is Mazón, not the Generalitat Valenciana.
