The Minister of the Environment and the President of the Federation of Municipalities have finalised the framework for collaboration between the regional and municipal administrations, which responds to a broad demand from local entities.
Municipalities with fewer than 50.000 inhabitants in the Region will be able to carry out environmental procedures in order to speed up the development of the actions planned in their municipal area, as is already done by the municipalities of Murcia, Cartagena, Lorca and Molina de Segura. This has been agreed by the regional Government, through the Ministry of the Environment, Universities, Research and Mar Menor, and the Federation of Municipalities of the Region of Murcia.
The Minister for the Environment, Juan María Vázquez, held a meeting today with the President of the Federation of Municipalities, Víctor Manuel López, to close a framework for collaboration between administrations that allows “all municipalities, who wish to do so, whatever their size, to lead projects that affect and facilitate the daily lives of their inhabitants, highlighting their environmental wealth in harmony with the rest of the values of their locality”.
In this way, local councils will be able to act as an environmental body and directly manage the environmental assessment procedures for plans, programmes or projects in which they are entirely responsible for the development, approval and adaptation.
“This measure is entirely voluntary,” stressed the councillor, who explained that the town councils will be able to exercise these powers upon request and signing an agreement with the regional administration, “provided that they prove that they have the technical and personal means to carry them out, guaranteeing the effectiveness and efficiency in the management of the files.”
Vázquez stressed that it is a measure that “grants greater municipal autonomy to the town councils” and that “responds to a broad demand from the town councils, who want to have more participation in their projects.” “No one knows their town better than their own town council,” he said.
For his part, the representative of all the mayors has actively participated in the negotiation of this agreement, since, for the municipalities of the region, the situation of municipal powers is a significant issue that causes numerous problems for the local public administration, especially due to the time factor, since the processes are prolonged and lead to the loss of opportunities for the municipalities. The president of the FMRM has said in this regard that "it is vitally important to effectively establish this transfer of powers to those municipalities that voluntarily decide to adhere to this agreement so that they can resolve environmental processes themselves so that their localities can advance in this area."
Monitoring Commission
Within this framework of collaboration, a Monitoring Committee will be created to resolve problems of interpretation, execution and compliance with the agreement. It will be composed of the Director General of the Environment, a representative of the City Council, graduates in Law and higher education graduates competent in environmental matters.
This measure will be accompanied by the corresponding funding from the Autonomous Community, which will be set annually and will be linked to each type of file processed based on the number of hours spent by the staff in charge of processing it.
The president of the Federation of Municipalities, Víctor Manuel López, thanked the regional government of Fernando López Miras for “having responded to his demand to improve the financing of municipalities so that they can join this initiative, which is especially important for towns with fewer than 10.000 inhabitants, which have to make a greater effort.”
