The president of the Parliament of the Canary Islands, Astrid Pérez, participated this Thursday in the meeting of the Working Group on Sustainable Development and Water of the European Regional Parliaments held in Murcia.
After the reception, this Wednesday, by the president of the Murcian Assembly, Visitación Martínez, and the signing in the Book of Honor of the institution, the president of the Canary Chamber attended today the meeting between representatives of the regional parliaments convened from different areas of the continent.
The day began with the intervention of the president, Visitación Martínez, who gave way to the round table “Water: integral management for a more sustainable present and future”, with the General Director of Water of the Government of the Region of Murcia, the General Secretary of the Community of Irrigators of Campo de Cartagena, Mariano Soto, and the director of Aqualia Región de Murcia, Miguel Ángel Jiménez.
“These meetings of the representatives of the European Regional Parliaments, the Calre -which is made up of 72 assemblies from all over the continent- are very necessary. Today in Cartagena, in the Region of Murcia, we have listened to authentic experts in water management, who have shown possible solutions to common problems in many places in Europe, including the Canary Islands, where at the moment we find ourselves in a serious situation in this aspect, with a water emergency declared in several of our islands”, said the president of the Canary Parliament.
Astrid Pérez valued the Region of Murcia as the example to follow for all of Europe in the integral management of water resources. “This community has a lot to teach the rest of the continent. Here 90% of the water is reused, when in the Canary Islands, for example, we barely reach 20%”, she highlighted.
“Today we have put on the table the reuse and purification of water, with very interesting conclusions for the archipelago, where we have the difficulty of having eight different water purification and reuse systems, which take into account the orography and infrastructures of each island”, she pointed out.
The president highlighted that the first challenge facing the archipelago is planning, “water requires planning, in the medium and long term, and the Canary Islands have a delay in the planning of the infrastructures of the integral water cycle”.
The day concluded with a visit to the San Pedro del Pinar Wastewater Treatment Plant, as an example of water management in the Region of Murcia.