They started with the Aita Maribut the Valencian government has launched a series of claims for port taxes against nine other humanitarian rescue ships that docked in the regional public ports of Vinaròs, Burriana or Benicarló. The Valencian tax authorities are now claiming tens of thousands of euros from the ships and their entities Open Arms, Sea Punks, Louise Michel, Sea Watch, Sea Humanity, Mission Lifeline, Resq People, SOS Humanity and Salvamento Marítimo Humanitario, which have saved thousands of people from drowning in the Mediterranean.
Next Monday, September 9, the Director General of the Ports of the Valencian Generalitat, Marc García, will meet with the Aita Mari to remedy the situation, although the tax process continues and the entities must pay what is claimed by the administration and then appeal. “The current regulations apply here. There is an exemption when the ships that dock in our ports carry out humanitarian rescue operations. If these ships justify that they were carrying out rescue tasks and everything that was necessary to do so, they will not be charged. But if the ships were stopped for three months, they would not be at fault,” sources from the Ministry of the Environment explain to elDiario.es.
Sources of Aita Mari They explain to elDiario.es that the situation is very complicated, because once the tax application is initiated, the entity must pay more than 60,000 euros in any case and then wait for the appeal to be resolved. “The Generalitat can affirm that there has been no evolution of the previous regulations of the Consell, but it cannot imply that it is necessary to pay retroactively for four years.”
The Consell del Botànic, formed by the PSPV and Compromís, exempted humanitarian aid ships from paying port taxes when they docked in the public ports of the Generalitat Valenciana for supply work, repairs or rest of the personnel. But the exemption from these obligations was not sufficiently administratively linked and the new Consell of PP and Vox, now without the extreme right, have started the procedures to claim these tariffs from 2021 “applying the regulations”. In the case of Aita Marian amount of more than 60,000 euros.
L’Aurora, a group of 16 social entities gathered today in front of the Generalitat to protest against what happened, denounced the “legal uncertainty” that this action has generated and warns that humanitarian ships will stop arriving in the Valencian Community because “. it is no longer a welcoming land.
The Ministry of the Environment defends its management. “The Botanic Government decided to stop charging these fees to certain entities. It did so with a decision without legal protection in which it limited itself to letting the different files expire, which generated a problem of legal security for the public service,” they argued. According to the same sources, “what has been done now is to regularize the situation that lacked administrative support and apply the same law. In no case has the regulation been modified with the decree of administrative simplification in this sense, which has simply been limited to updating the electricity and water rates to be paid.”
On the other hand, the Ministry of the Environment responds that in other ports of the Valencian Community that depend on the government, no type of exemption is applied even when rescue tasks are carried out.
