The spokesperson for the Canarian Coalition in the Congress of Deputies, Cristina Valido, has demanded this Tuesday, from the Government of Spain, to "complete with all its content and with full political value" the transfer of competence in matters of coasts to the autonomous community of the Canary Islands. "It is necessary for the State to respect everything that the Statute of Autonomy already recognizes us," said the Canarian nationalist deputy, describing as "insufficient" the downward revision of the competential capacity of the Canary Islands in matters of coasts.
Thus, the CC spokesperson has asked to address the reality of a coastline "that is not linear and where not all cases can be treated the same."
Cristina Valido has spoken before the plenary session of Congress during the parliamentary debate of a bill of the Popular Group to modify the Coasts Law 22/1988 for the preservation of coastal urban areas of traditional typology and other facilities of public interest, in land that has become maritime-terrestrial public domain. In this context, the spokesperson for the Canarian Coalition first lamented that the State does not finish completing the transfers of competence in matters of coasts in the islands and described the reform under discussion as "insufficient".
In this sense, Cristina Valido recalled the background in the Canary Islands. "In 2018 we celebrated the law in the Canary Islands because as an autonomous community it gave us competence in matters of coastline, as stated in article 157 of the Statute of Autonomy, but the transfer of 2022 turned out to be a fiasco because afterwards those same competences were cut back, although we continue to demand that the Statute of Autonomy of the Canary Islands be complied with," said the nationalist spokesperson to recall that this issue is still in dispute in the courts between the State and the autonomous community.
Regarding the situation of the coastal nuclei, Cristina Valido has asked for attention to each population case and its unique characteristics because, she said, "we have the obligation to address the reality of a coastline that is not linear, since there are cases that would deserve one consideration and another not, but above all we must be able to enforce what is approved here." In this sense, the spokesperson for the Canarian Coalition explained that "if there are territories that know the difficulties faced by some historical, cultural or ethnological coastal nuclei, they are the islands because in the Canary Islands, from La Graciosa to the coast of El Hierro, there is no island that does not have an affected coastal nucleus."
Regarding the proposal of the Popular Group, Valido considered the proposal "a small step" because, she explained, "we are happy to find in this proposal a direct allusion to climate change and the effects that this process has on those coastal populations of territories such as the Canary Islands." In this sense, the Canarian nationalist deputy warned of "substantial changes in ecosystems" and asked that a debate be rigorously addressed on cases of coastal nuclei that "mean a lot and have their own social values", although she reiterated that "this issue cannot be approached from a linear perspective because there are populations that deserve consideration based on their history, their social and economic values, and also for their culture."
