The president of the Canary Islands, Fernando Clavijo, and the Lehendakari, Imanol Pradales, have sent to the presidents of the autonomous communities and autonomous cities, the proposed agreement for an extraordinary distribution of unaccompanied minors to guarantee the care of children and young people and thus alleviate the tension in the resource network in the Canary Islands.
The letter sets out the full text of the proposal that was presented at the XXVII Conference of Presidents and which was also sent to the Spanish Government. In this way, the highest representatives of the Canary Islands and the Basque Country seek to continue taking steps to advance a response to the dramatic situation that the autonomous communities located on the Southern Border, the Canary Islands and Ceuta, but also the Basque Country, the Northern Border, are experiencing.
The text urges "to effectively apply solidarity and territorial co-responsibility, as set out in the legal system." The Governments of the Canary Islands and the Basque Country argue that "it is a principle and an obligation that binds both the Government of Spain and the governments of the autonomous communities" and that its objective is "to ensure the coverage of basic needs and fundamental rights of unaccompanied minors."
Both the Canary Islands and the Basque Country advocate the activation of an extraordinary mechanism that allows "the distribution of unaccompanied migrant minors and guarantees their best interests", while resolving "the situation in the Canary Islands, Ceuta and the Basque Country".
The Canarian and Basque governments argue in their proposal that it is the Spanish government that "has the responsibility to effectively promote the equitable distribution of minors, actively cooperating and providing the corresponding material and economic resources." In this way, both territories seek to "ensure that minors have access to a safe environment, adapted to their needs and rights" that they demand be financed with state and European funds and with the coordination of the Ministries of Inclusion, Social Security and Migration."
Pillars of the Canary Islands-Basque Country proposal
In the proposal sent to the leaders of the regional executives, the governments of the Canary Islands and the Basque Country propose a collaboration agreement on migration management in four areas of management for "immediate" application. The first is a Strategic Migration Plan that includes planning, forecasting of different scenarios, evaluation indicators and a real economic report.
This Plan would be accompanied by the consideration of the Basque Country as the Northern Border after the closure of the border decreed by the French state on November 1, accompanied "by a greater economic endowment to attend to people in transit with dignity".
Similarly, both the Basque Country and the Canary Islands advocate "a balanced, coordinated and fair distribution among the autonomous communities" together with an economic report that guarantees and supports the extraordinary distribution of unaccompanied minors.
Finally, they advocate a distribution model based on a total of five indicators. Specifically, they refer to the model developed by the Canarian Government and signed by the Basque Executive on the indicators of total population, host population (average number of minors hosted per hundred thousand inhabitants in the last six months), GDP per capita, unemployment and solidarity (number of minors hosted in the last five years).
Extraordinary and urgent distribution
As they stated at the Conference of Presidents last December, both governments propose that the extraordinary measure should be applied within a period not exceeding three months with the appropriate legal figure. Immediately afterwards, they propose that the Sectoral Conference on Children should resume a more calm debate on the distribution coefficients to be applied in the future.
In this context, the president, Fernando Clavijo, acknowledged that this letter sent by the Canary Islands and the Basque Country to the regional executives only seeks "not to waste another minute and open it to debate and contributions from the presidents of the autonomous communities and cities." It also coincides with the migratory rebound in the Canary Islands, which has left 2,000 more people in recent days, raising the number of unaccompanied minors under the tutelage of the Canarian community to 5,812. In this regard, Clavijo warned that the "situation is unsustainable and we cannot continue waiting for the Spanish Government to take the initiative."
The proposal defended by the executives led by Clavijo and Pradales also contemplates the need for it to be accompanied by medium and long-term measures such as "cooperation with the countries of origin" within the framework of article 35 of Organic Law 4/2000 and the new immigration regulations. The objective is that "children, adolescents and young people can develop their life project in their country of origin." Similarly, it is requested that channels be established for the exchange of information on pilot projects underway in the countries of origin, such as "Tierra Firme", led by the Canarian government in Senegal.
