"As mayor of the municipality of Abrantes, I could not agree more with these concerns. We have in fact been warning for a long time about the issue of the regular flow of the Tagus, which does not exist. Sometimes it is very full, that is, there are large floods, and sometimes it is weakened, with absolutely no flow", said today to Lusa the mayor of the district of Santarém. Manuel Jorge Valamatos also indicated that the problem "also has a lot to do with the operation of the dams themselves and with the production of electrical energy". The mayor of Abrantes was speaking after the environmental movement proTEJO filed a complaint with the European Commission for the "non-implementation of ecological flows by Portugal and Spain". The mayor, who also chairs the CIM Médio Tejo, warned that "something must truly happen that makes us all responsible for greater attention, greater care, greater respect for environmental issues and for technical issues, capable of having much more regular flows than we have had in recent years". In this sense, he defended the need for "a different policy of management, of regulation of flows" and said that he could not "agree more with these movements that are interested in these matters of the Tagus, such as proTEJO and other movements that are associated with these issues, so that once and for all we can, both the Portuguese Government and the Spanish Government, find strategies capable of ensuring that our river can have a truly regular flow". Dozens of environmental, social, cultural and local authority organisations, a total of 27, signed the complaint submitted on 18 March to the European Commission by proTEJO, in which it demands "compliance with Community law, namely the Water Framework Directive (...) so that an ecological flow regime can effectively be implemented in the Tagus river", as provided for in the Albufeira Convention (AC), a treaty that regulates the management of rivers shared by Portugal and Spain. proTEJO appealed to the municipalities in the Tagus basin, to their intermunicipal communities (Lezíria do Tejo, Médio Tejo, Beira Baixa and Alto Alentejo) and to the Lisbon Metropolitan Area (AML), to take a "responsible position demanding that the governments of Portugal and Spain implement an ecological flow regime in the Cedillo dam on the Tagus river", which Manuel Jorge Valamatos admitted could happen in the CIMs. "The Tagus [river], for the Médio Tejo, for the Lezíria, for Lisbon and Vale do Tejo is, in fact, a central element in the life of these communities, (...), it is a reference and has a very relevant weight here (...) whether social, in agriculture, cultural, in tourist activity and in leisure", he listed. Therefore, he believes that, in the meeting that those CIMs will have within a week, "all municipalities, whether more or less riverside", will "obviously be in favour of these concerns that this movement presents". The mayor pointed out a "very significant advance in relation to water quality", associated with the "investment in the Tagus", with the problem now centred on the "quantity" and "irregularity" of the flows. "There is also much talk about the Alvito dam, as an important agent in this process of regulation and capacity to have more water frequently in the Tagus, but it is all work that we have to do. We are very attentive. I also believe that, in the next meeting of the Intermunicipal Community, all the mayors will be in favour of this action and these concerns, and that is what we will continue to do", he concluded. Read Also: Abrantes extends rural fire-fighting devices to 11 parishes (Portuguese version)