Over 80 Mayors from Alicante, Murcia, and Almería Stand Against Tajo-Segura Transfer Closure

New show of strength and protest against the closure of the Tajo-Segura transfer, a key infrastructure for the province of Alicante, now at risk due to the new exploitation rules of the aqueduct proposed by Pedro Sánchez's government. Over 80 mayors from Alicante, Murcia, and Almería have confirmed their attendance this Thursday at the event organized by the Murcia City Council against the new cut to the transfer, which foresees a 50% reduction in water contributions to irrigation by 2027.

Under a banner with the slogan 'Yes to the Tajo-Segura transfer. Yes to agriculture. Yes to livestock. Yes to the primary sector', the entire Levantine society will gather at the Artillery Barracks in Murcia in a show of unity against the government's intentions to end a vital means for this part of Spain. "Never in the history of this infrastructure has there likely been a municipal concentration of this magnitude," said the mayor of Murcia, José Ballesta.

The event will include the screening of a video, the reading of a manifesto by civil society representatives, and the signing of it, personally and "individually," by each mayor, concluding with a family photo of all participants.

Meanwhile, the president of the Tajo-Segura Aqueduct Irrigators' Union (Scrats), Lucas Jiménez, stated that we are at the "most delicate moment for Levantine irrigation" because "what is at stake here is a way of life, a vision of the future, which has represented all of us in the Levant, known as Europe's orchard."

Jiménez emphasized that this Thursday's event will be "a reaffirmation of a right, a reaffirmation of justice for the Levant" because "a politically motivated cut is being made to an infrastructure that has served not only this area but the entire nation with integrity for 46 years."

For the Scrats leader, "the important thing and what provokes this feeling is the way it has been done" by the Ministry for Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge (Miteco), with the announcement of a "cut" that will make it "impossible" to achieve "the ideal transfer" because the rule has been raised to a "historically unattainable level."

In 2023, the transfer was cut by 100 cubic hectometres, an amount described as "a real misery on the national scene when we talk about water," especially in a context of 1,000 million cubic metres stored in the country's reservoirs.

"We have never been as worried as we are at this moment; it is not just another point, it is not just another moment in the history of the transfer, which has been complicated," lamented Jiménez, who encouraged civil society to join this cause in the face of what he considered an attack on "Europe's orchard, which feeds practically the whole world with quality and safety."