Shared water management will be the focus of the XXXV Spain-Portugal Summit this Wednesday

Eduardo González The town of Faro, capital of the Algarve region (in the south of Portugal), will host this Wednesday the XXXV Spain-Portugal Summit, which will have as its central theme the shared management of water and in which agreements will be signed for the construction of two international bridges between Alcoutim and Sanlúcar de Guadiana (on the Guadiana) and between Nisa and Cedillo (Sever river). The Summit, whose central theme will be ‘Water, a common good’, will be attended by twelve ministers from Spain and thirteen ministers from Portugal, according to the program released last Thursday by the office of the Portuguese Prime Minister, Luís Montenegro, in his capacity as host of the summit. The meeting will begin on Wednesday at nine in the morning (one hour earlier in Spain) at the Fialho Palace in Faro, with a military welcome for Montenegro and the President of the Government of Spain, Pedro Sánchez. After the traditional “family photo”, Luís Montenegro and Pedro Sánchez will go to Faro City Hall, where they will receive the keys to the city, before holding a bilateral meeting at the Municipal Museum of the city. At the same time, bilateral ministerial meetings will begin, with the Portuguese delegation made up of thirteen ministers and the Spanish delegation of twelve, in areas such as Foreign Affairs, Migration, Territorial Cohesion, Education, Internal Administration, Transport and Housing, Economy and Industry, Employment, Environment and Energy, Agriculture and Fisheries or Culture. At around noon (local time, one hour earlier in Spain), the plenary session of the XXV Iberian Summit will begin, in which the two heads of Government and the rest of the ministers will participate. An hour later, the signing ceremony of the legal instruments and the joint press conference of Luís Montenegro and Pedro Sánchez will take place. The Summit will conclude with a lunch between the delegations. Water management According to the Portuguese Government, the central theme of the Summit will be the shared management of water. Last Tuesday, Luís Montenegro announced, in statements to the Portuguese channel SIC, that in Faro a “historic treaty” will be signed for the management of water that will create the conditions for his country to have “a water policy that values the environment and that reconciles all interests, those of agriculture, forests, tourism, supply for human consumption”. On September 27, the Vice President for Ecological Transition, Teresa Ribera, and her Portuguese counterpart, Maria da Graça Carvalho, agreed in Aranjuez to set minimum daily flows for the Tagus River and to establish, for the first time, a monthly flow regime in the final stretch of the Guadiana and announced that they would continue negotiating on these matters with a view to signing an agreement at the Cumbe de Faro. Ribera assured that day that Spain “understands well” that for Portugal “one of the most sensitive aspects” is the guarantee of minimum reference volumes in river flows. In addition, the Spanish Council of Ministers authorized on October 1 the signing of the Agreement between Spain and Portugal for the safety of navigation and recreational boating in the International Section of the Guadiana River (TIRG) and a week later did the same with the Agreement between the two countries on fishing in the same International Section of the Guadiana. Bridges and railways Moreover, during the Summit, much emphasis will be placed on the issue of infrastructure. In fact, the last Council of Ministers, held on 15 October, authorised the signing of agreements between Spain and the Portuguese Republic for the construction of two international bridges, one that will link the towns of Sanlúcar de Guadiana (Spain) and Alcoutim (Portugal) across the Guadiana and the other between the towns of Cedillo (Spain) and Montalvão-Nisa (Portugal) across the Sever river. The objective of both agreements, which will be signed in Faro and are in line with the “Final Declarations of successive Iberian Summits”, is “to improve the conditions for the movement of vehicles and people between the two States, thereby contributing to the development of the cross-border area located in the Autonomous Community of Andalusia on the Spanish side and the Algarve Region on the Portuguese side”, according to Pedro Sánchez's Executive. Portugal and Spain had already signed on November 4, 2022, during the Spanish-Portuguese Summit in Viana do Castelo, the commitment to build the two bridges by 2025. Another issue that will be addressed at the Summit will be the launch of the Seville-Huelva-Faro high-speed train, after the plenary session of the Andalusian Parliament recently approved a PP initiative in which the two governments are urged to make a commitment in this regard in Faro. For its part, the Government of Extremadura has requested that the Summit produce a commitment to complete the works on the Madrid-Talavera-Extremadura-Lisbon high-speed train by 2030. Olivenza During the Faro Summit, bilateral relations in various areas will also be addressed and international issues will be discussed, such as the crisis in the Middle East. In any case, it is not expected that during the conversations between the two delegations the controversial statements made on 13 September by the Portuguese Minister of Defence, Nuno Melo, will be brought up, in which he demanded that Spain hand over the border town of Olivenza (Badajoz) with the argument that it is a Portuguese municipality “by treaty”. “Olivenza is Portuguese, naturally, and it is not a provocation”, he said in statements to the press from Estremoz, in Évora, according to the Portuguese agency Lusa. The Spanish government responded that there is no doubt about Olivenza's Spanishness and chose to downplay these words, according to the Efe agency. For his part, the Portuguese Minister of Foreign Affairs, Paulo Rangel, declared that it was a personal opinion of his colleague, that the matter is not on the agenda of the Portuguese government and that he will not be present at the Faro Summit, and the leader of the Socialist Party, Pedro Nuno Santos, described these statements as "extremely serious" because they could have an "impact on foreign policy", especially with diplomatic relations with Spain, and demanded responsibility from Luís Montenegro.

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