Demanding action plan President visits Murcia

THE President of the Spanish government and Secretary General of PSOE, Pedro Sánchez visited Murcia on Saturday, May 6 in support of the socialist candidates Pepe Vélez and José Antonio Ser‐rano. The event was held at the Pabellón municipal Príncipe de Asturias and it was filled with excited PSOE supporters.

During the event Pe‐dro Sánchez made a few announcements, first, he highlighted the 50 per cent financing of an inter‐rail pro‐gramme so that ‘thou‐sands of young people between 18 and 30 years old can travel around Europe this summer from June 15 until September 15.

He continued with another by saying a ’90 per cent discount will be applied on trains and buses that depend on the State and 50 per cent on high‐speed trains.’ He explained to his crowd of support‐ers that in doing so they hope to help the tourism and cultural sector by promoting thousands of national destinations helping to develop rural Spain. The President’s last visit to the region was on December 19, 2022, when he attend‐ed the first trip on the high‐speed train from Madrid.

THE regional government of Murcia has reiterated its demands that the Minister for Ecological Transition au‐thorise the clearance of the aquifer, the underground layer of water‐bearing permeable rock (gravel, sand, or silt), of the Campo de Cartagena to tackle the nitrate pollution of the Mar Menor.

The spokesperson for the regional Minister, Marcos Ortuño said they asked “for the umpteenth time to re‐cover the Zero Dumping Plan for which there was €55 million of European funds allocated but Pedro Sánchez, the President, diverted elsewhere.’

The Zero Dumping Plan refers to the plan to pump water from the aquifer and then channel it to San Pedro del Pinatar where it will go through a deni‐trification process and after pumped in‐to the Mediterranean Sea instead of the Mar Menor. The central govern‐ment still refuses to move forward with this plan encouraging the region to ‘act at source’ by tackling nitrate degradation in agriculture. They have given the go‐ahead for the removal of massive accumulations of floating veg‐etation, known as ‘ova’ in the Mar Menor. This has a budget of €3.2 mil‐lion and will begin this month.