A backward step for the seaboard

The government has announced its intention to reform the Coast Law, and the first hints of its plans give reason to fear a dangerous relaxation in the mechanisms that the law established to curb the abusive construction along the Spanish coast. The original law, from 1988, made it obligatory to set the boundaries of zones to be assigned to the public domain, as well as forbidding construction in the same areas. It also permitted the existence of earlier structures, as state concessions, during a period of 30 years (extendable to 60) before demolishing them.

In one of his first official appearances the agriculture, food and environment minister, Miguel Arias Cañete, referred to the need to make the law compatible with economic development, and announced an extension of the concessions. In subsequent weeks, his department has enumerated other reasons. A recent ministerial report speaks of the arbitrary manner in which the delimitation of public zones has been made in recent years, and of the “legal insecurity” this has generated for owners of structures built before 1988.

The Coast Law was born with the mission of putting a brake on the runaway development that has devastated the Spanish coast, inexorably invading beaches, dunes and marshes. The difficulties in implementing it have been huge, so much so as to produce an internal rift in the Socialist Party (PSOE), which brought it into being. Delimitation has been carried out along some 95 percent of the coast, and the lawsuits brought by those affected have been dealt with — the majority of them having been won by the administration. There was also an appeal at the level of the Constitutional Court, which endorsed the law.

It is no accident that in its first period in power, 1996 to 2004, the Popular Party (PP) left a legal measure that it has never liked intact, but is now attacking it. Within six years, in 2018, many of the state concessions will expire and, as a consequence, the government in power would be obliged to administer the removal of hundreds of seaside properties. The governing party’s intention to back off from the law’s initial scope is bad news, and not just for the environment. In the short term this may bring economic advantages, but in the long term the deterioration of the Spanish coast is also a serious threat to the tourist industry. A reform of the law will be a lifesaver for many private businesses that occupy public land, but it will generate further legal insecurity by unfairly damaging those owners who have already complied with the law.

This plan shows the PP’s short-term tactics and lack of respect for public property. Arias Cañete is the environment minister, not the economy minister, and as such might be expected to show more interest in the better implementation of this law — which, unfortunately, and often owing to the pressure of local authorities, has not even succeeded in preventing the construction of new buildings on an already overcrowded coast.