Feb
2
Head of the Secretariat of Marine Affairs of Galicia, Rosa Quintana. (Photo: Xunta de Galicia)
‘No article of the aquaculture draft bill considers privatization’
SPAIN
Wednesday, February 03, 2016, 01:40 (GMT + 9)
The head of the Ministry of Marine Affairs of Galicia met with representatives of the shellfish handpicking sector to address the aquaculture draft bill of Galicia.
At the meeting, Rosa Quintana stressed that the regional government is betting on “Galician collective aquaculture and on the social aquaculture that is developed on cultivation platforms”.
All this, she highlighted, “putting clear game rules for all citizens to know what are the requirements to qualify for a project to develop aquaculture in Galicia”.
In this regard, given the criticism of privatization of public domain space, the Galician official argued that there “is no article of the draft bill that considers aquaculture privatization.” In fact, she stressed, there are “outstanding examples which show that there is no intention from the Administration to privatize or lease the use of public domain space for the benefit of multinational companies.”
One of them, she recalled, is that between 2011 and 2015 more than 500 cultivation platforms changed ownership and none of them happened to be managed by a multinational.
She also explained that in this period the situation of 1,600 farms in Carril was regularized with the granting of final authorization certificates for the people who were exploiting them. This, she noted, shows that the Xunta resolved the situation for these people to continue working, instead of issuing a bid in which private companies might have entered.
Quintana underlined that her ministry began six years ago its commitment to aquaculture, and explained that the Xunta prepared the Galician Aquaculture Strategy (ESGA), the start of the Coastal Aquaculture Master Plan (PDAL) and the draft bill on aquaculture with “sufficient time” for society to know where they wanted to go.
“The ESGA was on public display for eight months and had no arguments, and PDAL has 31 allegations, which are already included in the draft bill on aquaculture,” the minister said.
She reiterated that the text is not undergoing any legislative dsicussion, “only public display”.
In this regard, she noted that what the regional government did was to submit a draft bill so that, after analyzing it, the sector may expose their doubts in order to clarify things that are not clear enough.
“We are willing to sit down with them to discuss what they fear of this draft and explain the purpose of the Act and the direction we want to go in aquaculture,” concluded the head of the Ministry of Marine Affairs.
Related articles:
– Galician Government stops Aquaculture Act discussion
– Galician Aquaculture Act faces growing criticism
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