The Albufeira Convention, signed 25 years ago, established for the first time the commitments of Spain and Portugal to manage the five rivers they share (Miño, Lima, Duero, Tajo and Guadiana). But 25 years ago it could not be foreseen nor the frequency of droughts nor the large consumption of water associated with the development of agriculture and tourism that would occur on both sides of the border. At the next Iberian summit that the Governments of both countries are holding this Wednesday in Faro, in the Algarve, the signing of a new agreement is scheduled to focus, above all, on the Tagus and Guadiana rivers. Both Governments have been inclined to negotiate an agreement without entering into the review of the agreement, which would further delay the procedure and its implementation.
One of the controversial issues that is expected to be settled at the institutional level is the economic compensation of Spanish farmers for collecting water in the Alqueva reservoir, located in the Alentejo a short distance from the border and considered the largest artificial lake in Europe with its 250 square kilometers. “Spanish users will begin to pay the same as Portuguese users,” reported the Portuguese Minister of the Environment, Graça Carvalho, a few weeks ago, after announcing a commitment with the Spanish vice president and minister for the Ecological Transition, Teresa Ribera. Portugal did not obtain retroactive compensation for a practice that, they maintain, has developed over the last two decades, whose cost they had estimated at 40 million euros for the illegal consumption of 50 million cubic meters annually.
But the Spanish government ruled out retroactive compensation and has focused on clarifying the terms for the future. At the press conference held at the end of September, Vice President Teresa Ribera pointed out that the compensation demanded “something that until now does not exist, not only the historical path of who were the beneficiaries of the water, which may have changed in 40 years, but also the way to measure volume. On the Portuguese side, the cost of Spanish consumption is estimated at two million euros per year, which Andalusian and Extremaduran farmers who use water from the Alqueva, in the Guadiana hydrographic basin, would have to pay from now on.
The other hydrographic basin that has monopolized the negotiations is the Tagus. In Portugal, both environmentalists and specialists have been calling for the establishment of ecological flows in the river for some time. At the beginning of September, around thirty organizations demanded the publication of the terms of the agreement between both ministers, but the truth is that, a few hours before the summit, there are still pending issues. In fact, Teresa Ribera is scheduled to travel to Lisbon the day before the summit to close the negotiation with her Portuguese counterpart.
He international treaty signed in 1998 by the then Portuguese Prime Minister António Guterres and the Spanish President José María Aznar contemplated minimum flows for each shared river, but not ecological flows that were introduced by community mandate two years later. In 2008, Spain and Portugal established new temporary indicators for minimum flows, but the ecological ones, which guarantee the level of water necessary for river ecosystems to develop, remained pending. On the Portuguese side, it is criticized that Spain can cut off water contributions for days and then make them all at once, a practice that disturbs the river ecosystems and alters the estuaries by favoring salinization in periods of river water scarcity.
This year the Movement for the Tagus (ProTejo) has filed a complaint with the European Commission against Spain and Portugal, considering that they are failing to comply with the water framework directive for not applying ecological flows in the river and continuing to apply “an obsolete regime of minimum flows of the Albufeira Convention, established politically and administratively more than two decades ago.”