Instruments of Public Participation in Aragon Water Policy: The Aragon Water Commission

Abstract

This study aims to achieve a juridical approximation to the main instruments of public participation in policies of water management in Aragon. The social context in which water policy has developed until very recently was one of almost constant conflicts among water and land users (lowlands and the mountains). The traditional system of participation allowed users to participate in the governing organs of the hydrographic confederations that were set up by the 1985 Spanish Water Law. Changes were introduced by the European Union's 2000 Water Framework Directive, while the creation of the Aragon Water Commission the following year led to an advanced system of participation. In a State, that is to say in a society that has laws, freedom cannot consist in anything other than being able to do what one ought to want to do and in not being obliged to do what one ought not to do. (The Spirit of Laws, Montesquieu, 1748)