EL PERIODICO advances today the new water supply rates in 22 municipalities in the Barcelona area that will be approved on Tuesday by the Barcelona Metropolitan Area (AMB) and that will come into force in March 2024. As they explain Manuel Arenas and Guillem Costa, it is an increase of about three euros per home per month and seeks to compensate for the years of frozen rates, the increase in costs (what the supplier pays to the ATL, which has increased its price the same as electricity, encouraged by inflation ) and the investments required by the drought episode we are experiencing and the new environmental demands of the EU. The increase measured in percentage, between 20 and 30%, distorts the measure that is also accompanied by a list of social rates to protect the most vulnerable and that plans to reach up to 10% of households. Minister David Mascort already warned of the need for this measure when he also took office in an interview in EL PERIÓDICO.
Inflation is not good. We have said it hundreds of times, because it harms all pockets and all types of expenses in the same way. It has the same impact on what a high-net-worth family pays to go out on the weekend as it does on what it costs a modest family to cover essential services such as electricity, gas or water. That is why the frivolity with which Pedro Sánchez’s government treated the arrival of inflation was so serious., first denying it, then downplaying its importance, and distributing universal aid in a populist manner during two electoral campaigns. Now, city councils and autonomies have to face their impact on end-of-month bills, which, In the case of water, it is mixed with a very serious episode of drought and years of freezing rates encouraged by another type of populism, that of those who do not want to recognize the costs of services. In the Barcelona area, in the case of water, common sense is prevailing thanks to a broad social and political consensus that must remain vigilant until the end so that no one take advantage of the situation or be left behind. This is “high political profile.”