Judge blames Generalitat for failings in Catarroja DANA probe, cites poor information and competence

The fight over responsibility for Valencia’s October 29, 2024 DANA disaster has moved onto two tracks at once: the criminal case in Catarroja and the parliamentary commission in Les Corts. Court rulings over the past year have repeatedly said the Generalitat held the legal powers to manage the emergency unless a national emergency was declared, and that warning the public did not depend on Madrid. In May 2026, that judicial record collided with a draft report from the PP and Vox in Les Corts that blamed Spain’s central government for most of the failures. The clash has turned technical questions about civil-protection powers into the core of the political argument over the floods that killed 230 people in Valencia province. ### Why does the judge keep pointing back to the Generalitat? Judge Nuria Ruiz Tobarra, who is leading the Catarroja investigation, has been explicit in several rulings that civil-protection powers lay with the Valencian regional government. In a February 24, 2025 order rejecting a complaint against government delegate Pilar Bernabé, the court said it had no legal basis to tie the deaths and injuries to Madrid because “the competence in materia de protección civil is autonomous” and “the inactivity occurred in that sphere.” (poderjudicial.es) A February 6, 2026 ruling went further. El País, citing the judge’s order, reported that Ruiz Tobarra called it “una realidad paralela” to argue that the catastrophe should be treated in a way that exculpated the Generalitat, and said victims on October 29, 2024 needed “an action by the regional administration, capable of acting, managing and coordinating, which was legally competent.” The same report said the judge described the deaths as avoidable. (poderjudicial.es) ### What was the specific argument about Madrid’s role? The central legal dispute has been whether the national government should have declared an emergency of national interest and taken command. The Catarroja court said in February 2025 that there had initially been “consensus” at both regional and central levels that such a declaration was not appropriate. It also said public warnings could have been issued from the regional level without waiting for any national step. (elpais.com) The Audiencia de Valencia later backed that line. Reports on later appellate rulings said the provincial court upheld decisions not to investigate Bernabé and reiterated that the Generalitat had exclusive protection-civil authority under the regional statute and applicable law, reinforcing the Catarroja judge’s view that the emergency response was, in legal terms, primarily a regional matter. (poderjudicial.es) ### What did PP and Vox put into the Les Corts report? PP and Vox, which hold a majority in the commission, registered a joint draft opinion in May 2026 that directed most blame toward the central government. El País reported on May 18 that the 12-page conclusions mentioned the Generalitat directly in only three paragraphs while extending accusations against Madrid over the lack of a national emergency declaration, unfinished hydraulic works and an alleged information blackout by state agencies Aemet and the Júcar river authority. (poderjudicial.es) eldiario.es reported on May 23 that the same draft blamed the central executive for not declaring a national emergency, for not carrying out hydraulic works halted in 2012, and for a supposed information blackout that the Catarroja judge had already dismantled. That account framed the PP-Vox text as colliding with the judicial findings on powers and information flow. (elpais.com) ### Why is the “information blackout” claim disputed? Aemet and the Confederación Hidrográfica del Júcar have long rejected accusations that they failed to provide information on October 29, 2024. Government officials, including then-Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska and then-Ecological Transition Minister Teresa Ribera, said in November 2024 that state agencies provided alerts and information in real time. (eldiario.es) By May 2026, the political dispute over that point had become part of the commission’s final wording. El País and eldiario.es both reported that the PP-Vox text repeated the blackout allegation even though, according to those outlets’ accounts of the judicial record, courts had already rejected or contradicted that narrative in various orders. (europapress.es) ### Who is under criminal scrutiny in the Catarroja case? Salomé Pradas, the former regional justice and interior minister, and Emilio Argüeso, her former emergencies deputy, are the two people most widely identified in reporting as under investigation in the criminal case. Multiple reports on the judicial file say they were the officials with direct emergency responsibilities on October 29, 2024. (elpais.com) The courts, by contrast, have repeatedly refused to extend the criminal case to central-government officials on the theory advanced by some complainants. The February 2025 Catarroja order rejected the complaint against Bernabé, and later appellate reporting said Valencia’s provincial court upheld that decision. (rtve.es) ### What happens next in Les Corts and in court? Les Corts scheduled the next step for May 27, 2026, when amendments to the PP-Vox draft and the final commission opinion are due to be debated, according to El País’s May 18 report. That debate will pit the majority’s account against objections from PSPV and Compromís, which have criticized the closure of the inquiry and said key witnesses did not appear. (poderjudicial.es) The Catarroja case remains open in parallel. As of the latest reporting cited here, the investigation continues to examine the emergency response to the October 29, 2024 floods, while the parliamentary commission is moving toward a final text under the scrutiny of the same judicial record that has repeatedly assigned operational responsibility to the Generalitat. (poderjudicial.es) (elpais.com)