Different investigations are trying to clarify the origin of the African swine fever epidemic which has so far killed 26 wild boars in the Collserola park (Barcelona) and forced the Generalitat to establish a 20-kilometer safety belt around the place where the first victim appeared. With all the alarms raised, the livestock sector has intensified its controls due to the risk of the virus reaching its pig farms and has seen prices fall and some buying countries have restricted purchases of products from the affected area. The Animal Health Research Center (CReSA), a laboratory dependent on the Generalitat, is in the eye of the storm as a possible vector of contagion. And if this is confirmed, the Catalan administration risks having to face liability proceedings for the losses caused to a sector which exports 8 billion euros each year.
CReSA is part of the network of centers of the Institute of Agrifood Research and Technology (IRTA), a public company of the Generalitat attached to the Department of Agriculture. Therefore, its possible responsibility as a transmitter constitutes a weakness for the Administration if it is demonstrated that the strain of wild boars that died from swine fever is the same as that used for the experiments carried out at the center, located on the campus of the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB). “If it is possible to attribute the damage caused to a public institution, financial responsibility can be demanded for the incorrect actions of the Administration,” explains Marta Franch, professor of administrative law at UAB. According to him, companies that would like to file a complaint will not be able to respect the measures applied to contain the epidemic, because they were proportional, but they will be able to respect the actions of the laboratory.
Joan Manuel Trayter, professor in the same subject at the University of Girona, is of the same opinion. “You must demonstrate, through an expert, that swine fever caused you losses and that there is a cause and effect link.” According to him, if the CReSA ends up being designated, the Generalitat will not have the choice of the force majeure argument that the Spanish administrations have used to refuse the same type of requirements of patrimonial responsibility due to the restrictions during covid, which forced the closure of commercial establishments of all types.
Businesses have one year to file a claim in the event of damage to their business. From there, the Generalitat can respond within a maximum period of six months. Administrative silence amounts to refusal, so both avenues open the way to filing a complaint in the contentious courts, with the possibility of reaching the Supreme Court if appeals are chosen. The road is long and each company, or breeding, must act alone. Employers could contribute to the automation of processes, but not to the opening of collective files.
Until now, companies specializing in pork were affected by falling prices (in the middle of the pre-Christmas period, when prices do not collapse) and by the closure of imports in certain countries, such as Japan and the Philippines. China, the biggest buyer of Spanish pork, has limited restrictions to the province of Barcelona. Likewise, tens of thousands of pigs were slaughtered on farms near the infected zone, the meat of which was concentrated on the domestic market.
The National Association of Meat Industries of Spain (Anice) is not yet considering the possibility of requesting compensation from the Generalitat, says its director, Giuseppe Aloisio. “We are focusing on controlling the epidemic, which is most urgent: limiting it to wildlife, because if it spreads to farms, the scenario will be different,” he explained, while awaiting the final results of the three investigations. “We must first confirm it and then we will see, because the whole process can be very long,” explains Pere Roqué, president of the Agrarian Association of Young Farmers (Asaja) of Catalonia. The spokesperson for a major meat company admits, however, that comments are starting to be heard in the sector regarding the opening of this route. Aloisio denies it: “it’s not even on the table.”
The appearance of swine fever in the Collserola urban park on November 26, three decades after the last case, is at the center of three ongoing investigations. One is carried out by the Ministry of Agriculture, opened on December 5 after receiving a sequencing analysis of the virus. At the same time, the Mossos d’Esquadra and the Nature Protection Service (Seprona) of the Civil Guard are trying to find the origin of the crisis, as part of an investigation entrusted to the Cerdanyola district court.
The third work in question is the one opened by the Generalitat to clarify the possible responsibilities of the different research centers, and which could have used the pathogenic agent in their experiments, near the place where the corpses of the two infected wild boars were found. However, all eyes are on CReSA, which is proven to have used the strain of the virus that caused the outbreak and is engaged in reform work. There are research spaces with biosecurity level 3, necessary for experimenting with viruses such as African swine fever.
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