Eduardo González
The Congress Foreign Affairs Committee approved this Tuesday the opinions on four agreements reached last October during the 35th Spanish-Portuguese Summit: the agreements for the construction of two international bridges over the Guadiana and Sever rivers and two others on nautical and fishing activities in the International Section of the Guadiana River (TIRG).
The agreements regarding the two bridges were approved by 34 votes in favor, none against, and three abstentions, while the other two agreements for the protection of river ecosystems and the management of water resources were approved by 31 votes in favor, none against, and six abstentions. Once this process is completed, the four texts will be submitted to the Plenary Session of the Lower House for approval. The four agreements were submitted by the Council of Ministers to the Cortes Generales (Spanish Parliament) in early February.
The Spanish-Portuguese Summit, held on October 23 in Faro (southern Algarve), concluded with the signing of eleven agreements on areas such as water, the environment, and culture, and with the commitment of both governments to ask France and the European Commission to facilitate rail and energy interconnections between the Iberian Peninsula and the rest of Europe.
Regarding infrastructure, Spain and Portugal agreed in Faro to build two international bridges: one that will connect the towns of Sanlúcar de Guadiana (Spain) and Alcoutim (Portugal) across the Guadiana River, and another that will connect the towns of Cedillo (Spain) and Montalvão-Nisa (Portugal) across the Sever River.
The objective of both agreements, according to the Government, is to “improve the conditions for the movement of vehicles and people between the two states,” thereby contributing not only to increasing human traffic and improving human and economic exchanges between the two countries, but also to developing cross-border areas located in the Autonomous Community of Andalusia and the Algarve Region, on the one hand, and in the Autonomous Community of Extremadura and the Alentejo Region, on the other.
Likewise, the objective of the other two agreements signed in Faro and approved by the Foreign Affairs Committee is to improve the protection of river ecosystems and the management of water resources to ensure the sustainability of socio-economic activities.
Specifically, these are the agreements on the safety of navigation and recreational boating in the International Section of the Guadiana River (TIRG) and on fishing in the same International Section of the river.
Both agreements were requested by the International Boundary Commission (IBC) between Spain and Portugal to generate economic and social opportunities for border populations, in accordance with international law. The regulations, classified as international agreements, were authorized in 2015 by the Council of Ministers and signed at the Faro Summit, whose central theme was precisely the shared management of water.