Water Pricing in Spain

Abstract

Water pricing management in Spain reflects the different opinions of the decentralised governments and the appropriate sectors of the country, where there is considerable impact of the different sectorial laws and practices. The responsibilities of the Federal Government and the Autonomous Communities on this issue are not specifically defined. This has resulted in differing opinions and actions, which could be resolved by considering cost-recovery of the water supply-related services, which are included in the Laws of the Communities (2000/60/CE).

Notes

Without going into the legal details, for reason of space, in Spanish Law taxations are divided into the three types specified in the text: Tax, Special Contribution and Rate.

cf. the revised text of the Water Act approved by Legislative Decree 1/2001 of 20 July.

The most complex and detailed legislation is that of Catalonia, but with regard to water treatment, there is also legislation in Galicia, Asturias, La Rioja, Navarre, Aragon, the Community of Valencia, Murcia, Madrid, the Canary Islands and the Balearic Islands. Other CCAA also have legislation regarding urban water supply: Catalonia, Madrid, Asturias and the Canary Islands.

See the legal regulation of the Tagus-Segura transfer (Acts passed in 1971 and 1980 with certain subsequent modifications), the Ebro transfer to Tarragona (1981, with certain subsequent modifications), the Tagus-Guadiana transfer (1995, with certain subsequent modifications), the Guadiaro-Guadalete transfer (1995), and the Guadalquivir-South transfer (1999).

cf. Act 10/2001 of 5 July, concerning the National Hydrological Plan.

One only has to read the regulation and water tariffs precept in article 114 of the revised text of the Water Act to arrive at the conclusion that the beneficiaries pay the total cost of the state's investment.

For example, when certain reservoirs are attributed, in many cases quite rightly so, with the ability to mitigate flooding, implying because it is related to general interests, the assumption of a specific percentage of the cost of construction and exploitation by the public authorities.

For example, once again, the reference to the fact that only ‘recoverable’ investments (and this implies that there would be other investments that are not recoverable, without any indication of which is which) would be taken into account when determining the transfer fee regulated by the National Hydrological Plan. cf. article 22.6.a.

cf. Sumpsi Vinas (1998); Lopez-Galvez & Naredo (Eds) (1997); .

This phenomenon is not exclusive to agricultural use; many of the infrastructures for urban supply are also obsolete, leading to losses of 30% of the volume transported, and sometimes more.

‘Up to now’, because the National Irrigation Plan, as yet to be wholly approved at the time of writing, aims to carry out significant actions in this respect.

For example, the clause regarding rational use of natural resources contained in article 45.2 of the Spanish Constitution, which incidentally concurs with article 174 of the European Community Treaty. For further information, see Embid-Irujo (1997, p. 209 ).

This policy is accompanied by noteworthy efforts in the field of the regulation of wastewater recycling and desalination. cf. Embid-Irujo (2000) .

Corresponding with the setting up in 1996 of the Ministry of the Environment, which logically envisaged water resources as essentially a natural resource, whose premises were certainly not the construction of hydro works as practically the only aspect of hydrological policy, as had predominantly been the case in the past. A good example of what is being said can be found in the Green Paper on Water (1998). cf. Embid-Irujo (1999) .

Much has been written on the regulation contained in articles 67–72 of the revised Text of the Water Act, but the work by Vazquez (2000) is particularly recommended.

On several occasions the author has expressed objections to custom-built recipes for improving existing problems. It is much better to have several so that, depending on the circumstances, the most suitable option can be chosen at any given moment. Water usage rights transfer contracts can solve certain problems, although they obviously cannot be considered a universal panacea (Embid-Irujo, 2001 ).

References to these questions can be found in Embid-Irujo (2001, p. 59 ).