Two main organizations of Dana victims spoke in Brussels on Wednesday this week to condemn the “negligent and criminal” management of the Consel, chaired by Carlos Massón de la Dana, on October 29, 2024, demanding “justice and reparations” and vowing “not to stop until we know the truth” about what happened. They also called for lessons learned from a year ago and stressed the importance of a “culture of prevention.”
This is what they said at this Wednesday’s meeting What I learned from my husbandorganized by the socialists of the European Parliament and attended by 15 mayors from some of the affected towns and victims’ organizations. Teresa Rivera, First Vice-President of the European Commission, also attended the event hosted by MPs Sandra Gómez and Leire Pazín. They made it clear that they wanted to recognize “those who showed their faces in the most complex moments” and “those who were systematically abused by the Valencia Directorate.”
Rosa Álvarez, president of the Dana 29-O Death Victims Association, promised that these groups “will be here until justice is done” and stressed that learning after the Valencia incident must be “continuous.” “We can’t remain in a fixed picture of the moment because some things change quickly,” he warned. It’s been a year since the tragedy, and if they’ve learned anything in that time, it’s “the importance of a culture of prevention and procedures” that takes into account “timely prediction, planning and warning.”
In all this, he stressed “now more than ever” “the need to always stand on the side of science” in the face of “climate change and its devastating effects”. “Our relatives have died because of climate change, but it is equally because of the failure to manage this climate change. We have suffered and have seen it firsthand,” Alvarez said, calling for a vision of the phenomenon “from the local to the global and not the other way around.”
Dana 29-O, president of the Fatal Victims Association, chose to “think of constructive solutions from a political perspective” and pointed out that “we cannot rebuild what was. Rather, we rethink how we build.” Along these lines, he also advocated “investing in resilient infrastructure and adapting our territory’s urban planning approach.”
In another way, Álvarez used the opportunity to thank the “much help” they have received in recent months and the European institutions that have “opened their doors” to them “for the third time”. “I hope more happens,” he said. In the face of this, he regretted that on the same Tuesday “the door was once again closed in our home in Les Corts”, where Carlos Mazon, acting “president” of the Generalitat, appeared before the Commission of Inquiry on Dana.
Meanwhile, Marillo Gradri, president of the DANA October 29 Victims Association, denounced the “negligent and criminal management of the emergency” by the Ministry of Justice, chaired by its president Carlos Masson, and assured that in this situation the group “will not stop until we know the truth about what happened.” All of this, he stressed, is aimed at ensuring that such a disaster “will never happen again”.
He also demands “justice, which must be done in a criminal way, but with real political responsibility rather than false blame,” and “reparations” from European institutions that he believes “will not only help us achieve emotional resilience, but will also help build the infrastructure” to “adapt to climate change and mitigate the future climate change that will undoubtedly come.”
Pilar Bernabé, representative of the government of the Valencian community, congratulated the representatives of victims’ organizations for the “step forward” and called on them to “always tell the truth”, but stressed the “negligence” of the Generalitat, which was “the regime responsible” for the damage a year ago and “did not invoke the protocol or put in place any mechanisms”. In her speech, Rosa Álvarez specifically thanked Bernabe for “always being there from the beginning, not just as a representative but as a human being,” something that “all political positions” should follow but is “not normal.” “You are no longer my government representative. You are Pilar,” she said.
European Commissioner Teresa Rivera also shared her reflections, warning that “the greatest individual responsibility” is to remove all issues such as monitoring and preparing for climate events, reducing emissions and managing climate-related issues outside “public policy, budgets and institutional capacities”. “Denying reality is the first step to creating very serious problems,” he stressed.
In the morning, two representatives of victims’ organizations took part in a meeting with the Green Party/European Freedom Alliance group, together with, among others, MP Vicente Marza of the Compromise Party and MP Jaume Asens of the Popular Party. “They struck twice. Blame it on climate change and political disaster,” Bas Eickhout, head of the green group, told the victims, as Kompromis shared in a statement. “No one should govern again on the basis of climate denialism,” Marza argued.
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