European Union
Spain joined the European Economic Community (EEC) in 1986. Since then, the European Union has influenced the Spanish waterscape, for instance, through the adoption of the European Water Framework Directive (WFD) of 2000. Subsequently, the European Commission supported and co-financed the building of desalination plants in Spain through funds (18).
In fact, the European Commission pays an important share of the Spanish desalination program through the European Regional Development Fund and the Cohesion Fund, more specifically, it contributes to 33% of the Agua program, which equals approximately 1,262 million euros (1). With regards to the desalination plant in Barcelona, the Cohesion Fund covered up to 75% of the total costs, which contributed to approximately 150 million euros. Contrarily, the European Commission was hesitant and reluctant to co-finance the 6,000 million Ebro diversion project as it was concerned about the impacts on the delta (18).
During our interview, professor Erik Swyngedouw explained:
"Spain joined the European Economic Community in 1986. That period corresponds with the dominant form of capitalist development: I call this the ‘Post-War Keynesian Welfare State state-led and state-based economic development model’, which came in a crisis during the 1970s and continues throughout the 1980s. Subsequently, in the 1990s, we can observe the rise of neoliberalism. In my opinion, neoliberalism is a state-policy to get the states themselves out of organising the economy and moving the authority over economic forces to the private sector.
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So, the European Union was increasingly neoliberalising while focusing on market-rationality and new forms of commodification of nature. In the process of the Europeanisation in Spain, the adoption of neoliberal principles was intended to foster a particular form of socio-ecological ‘modernisation’, progress, and development. In fact, the European Union was increasingly setting the rules of the game. For instance, the Maastricht Treaty of 1992 established a set of common rules with regards to, for instance, subsidisation and other multi-scalar market-led and technocratic social and environmental regulatory frameworks, which were consolidated in the 2007 Lisbon Treaty. With regards to the Spanish waterscape, these principles and rules were articulated, implemented, and sanctioned in the European Water Framework Directive (WFD) of 2000, which provides a European Union-wide framework for national water policy.”
