The National Times - Under-fire Spain minister defends agencies' role in floods

The state weather and environment services have faced intense scrutiny over their response to the October 29 disaster that killed 227 people and wreaked widespread destruction.

The European Parliament has blocked Teresa Ribera's appointment to an influential EU commission role encompassing environment and competition, with opponents accusing her of neglecting her duties during the floods.

Regions are in charge of disaster management in Spain's decentralised political system, but the hardest-hit Valencia region's conservative leader Carlos Mazon said he received "insufficient, inaccurate and late" information.

Doubting state agencies was "deeply unfair and deeply dangerous", Ribera told parliament in a veiled retort to the conservative opposition.

"I would like to thank the work and dedication of the public servants who issued the information as was their duty," she added.

Mazon defended his handling of the catastrophe last week, citing an "information blackout" and criticising a government agency responsible for monitoring river levels.

But Ribera said "there was never an information blackout" and enumerated a lengthy list of warnings issued by public bodies to the regional authorities.

Although the national weather agency issued the highest red alert in the morning of October 29, Valencia residents in many cases received telephone warnings only when water was already gushing through towns.

The socialist-led central government has said that Mazon bore responsibility for the late issuing of the emergency alert.

"Having all the necessary information is of little use if the one who must respond does not know how," Ribera said.

- Political polarisation -

The right-wing opposition Popular Party (PP) has accused the government of abandoning the Valencia region before and after the floods for political gain.

The political polarisation has spilled over at EU level after the conservative EPP parliamentary group to which the PP belongs refused to approve Spain's commission nominee until she reported to the Spanish parliament.

"The European Commission does not deserve to come into existence with a candidate under suspicion," PP leader Alberto Nunez Feijoo wrote on X.

The EPP released a statement Wednesday saying Ribera should resign if the Spanish justice system "accuses her of wrongdoing" but did not rule out backing her.

The Socialists and Democrats group have said the Spanish right is trying to make Ribera the "scapegoat" for its own flood mismanagement in Valencia and pushing the bloc "to the brink".

Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said Tuesday that his party always backed PP candidates for the commission and urged "reciprocity" from them.

E.Reid--TNT