In March 2022, the Government declared it “urgent” to modernize the elite fleet of amphibious planes against forest fires. It had European funds amounting to 22.8 million euros for this purpose. But four years and four months later, it had to cancel the contract. It has not renewed a single plane. And yet, it has redirected the community funds to other policies. How? By preserving the milestone of the Recovery Plan that was fulfilled by signing a contract (milestone 65) and eliminating the one that required “delivering 10 modernized planes” (milestone 66).
That is to say, the Executive accepts the formalization of the contract… without it being carried out. This is what the PP denounces, for whom it is a “clear misuse” of European funds. And not by mistake, but by poor management practice, the popular party denounces: “There is no need to attribute bad faith for the file to be scandalous: the alternative to bad faith is incompetence difficult to justify in a matter directly related to the fight against fires,” they point out in Génova.
This failed modernization was not precisely temporary, but the Government qualified it as “imperative, given the current state of the fleet, which has sometimes resulted in prolonged inoperability as well as increasing maintenance costs of equipment and systems.” As EL MUNDO revealed, the Ministry of Ecological Transition stated in its “urgency declaration” that “the opportunity cost of not carrying out this modernization task may result in a significant decrease in the capabilities to support forest fire extinction.”
This has led the popular party to prepare a set of seven questions, which they will bring to the Cortes so that the Government is obliged to answer them and provide precise information about the “shuffling” of European funds for amphibious planes and to explain its “contradictions.” The first is: “If modernization was ‘imperative,’ why was the contract awarded without securing the necessary technical rights to carry it out?” The second: “If the purchase of new aircraft replaced modernization, why did the Government announce both actions simultaneously in 2024?”
Among the rest, the last three stand out: “How much money has actually been paid from the 22.8 million awarded and what work or materials has the State received?” “Who will assume responsibility for a contract that remained blocked for four years and ended without any modernized plane?” And “how will the fleet’s operability be covered until the arrival of the new planes between 2028 and 2031?”
The renewal contract was canceled without being executed
The cancellation of the modernization contract for the elite amphibious planes, known as FOCA, occurs just when the Government has a deficit of these amphibious planes. On the vast majority of days during the anti-fire campaign, only seven were operational, due to breakdowns and maintenance. Just when three are missing, Spain had to request four of these FOCA planes from the EU to face this summer’s emergencies: two from Greece and two from Italy.
The FOCA planes are the most effective and versatile in forest fighting, as they load directly from rivers, reservoirs, or the sea, and have a water tank capacity between 5,500 and 6,000 liters, with the possibility of making single or partial drops, as well as foam injection equipment.
The PP regrets that Spain has lost the opportunity to improve the fleet, and therefore demands that the Executive “be held accountable” in the middle of the anti-fire campaign. “The project balance is: 10 planes committed, 22.8 million awarded, four years elapsed and zero planes modernized,” criticizes a PP document accessed by this newspaper.
Génova demands explanations for the “shuffling” with the money
“The Government’s current explanation contradicts previous announcements,” the popular party opines. Why? Because the Secretary of State for the Environment, Hugo Morán, assured that the priority was always to buy new amphibious planes, rather than modernization. “According to Morán, the first of the seven new planes will arrive in 2028 and the last in 2031. This explanation contradicts the official announcements of the Government itself,” emphasizes the opposition’s leading party.
In April 2024, after the modification of the Recovery Plan, La Moncloa announced an agreement to “enable the Ministry of Defense to renew and improve the state fleet of amphibious planes against forest fires of the Air Force.” “Therefore,” criticizes the PP, “the purchase and modernization were not presented as alternatives, but as two simultaneous and complementary actions.”
Furthermore, the purchase of new planes “does not explain the failure of the modernization contract,” since it was supposed to conclude in June 2026, and the first Canadair 415 bought by Spain will not arrive until 2028. “There remains, therefore, a period of several years that was supposed to be covered precisely with the update of the existing fleet.” That is: “Five years with an obsolete fleet.”
It should be remembered that the Ministry of Ecological Transition itself acknowledged, in an email to the communities revealed by this newspaper, that “the fleet is increasingly old (with aircraft over 40 years old), which implies more unforeseen incidents, apart from ordinary inspections and maintenance.”
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