Partido Socialista Obrero Español (PSOE)

The Socialist party endorses desalination as a cornucopian solution to the water scarcity problem in Spain (18). In March 2004, the socialist PSOE, headed by Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, surprisingly won the national elections and immediately canceled the Ebro Transfer project. As an alternative to the Ebro diversion, the socialist Party proposed a new policy and implemented the so-called AGUA program, which included the construction of new desalination plants along the Spanish Mediterranean coast. Thus, desalination was staged by the socialist Party as a panacea for the water scarcity problem in Spain, including Barcelona (3 & 12). The Spanish companies have benefited from the boost given by the national government to desalination, allowing them to expand into other parts of the globe (5).