The President of the Canary Islands, Fernando Clavijo, has celebrated that, after the meeting with the interministerial commission on migration, the Government of Spain has the will to meet with the Popular Party in order to reach an agreement that allows the modification of the Immigration Law and enables the distribution of unaccompanied minors who arrive in the Canary Islands or other communities.
In this sense, Clavijo has expressed his willingness to meet as soon as possible, "since Minister Torres has invited me to be present" with the hope that from that meeting, "for which we have worked so hard, we will come out with an agreement that prevents the Canary Islands from continuing to face an unsustainable situation alone and that both the State and the European Union understand that this phenomenon requires a global response."
Regarding the controversy over the care protocol for unaccompanied foreign minors, the president assured that he does not know the terms by which the Government of Spain wants to raise a conflict of competences and raise it to the constitutional court, when it is a procedure that they themselves approved in 2014."
In any case, for the State itself, "unaccompanied foreign minors do not have the same legal situation as minors of Spanish nationality," he clarified, adding that from an extraordinary situation "we have moved to an ordinary situation that requires greater controls so that situations such as receiving children without a photograph, or retaining as adults those who are minors, do not occur," he detailed.
In this sense, the President of the Canary Islands insisted that the protocol, approved by resolution, does not go against the State, but in favor of greater protection of minors, "that is why I hope to know, as soon as possible, in what terms it is not legally sustained, to study them and see what can be changed, if we consider it so, and if the agreement is not possible then it would be reasonable to raise it to higher instances, but first we must study it," he said.
"I would have liked to have found as much diligence in finding a consensual solution for the distribution of minors as the Government has shown in announcing an appeal against the Government of the Canary Islands, in a matter that I insist does not go against the State," the president added.
In relation to the agreement with the Popular Party, Clavijo stressed that what separates the PP from the Government of Spain are few nuances, and they are those referring to the minimum places that each Autonomous Community must have available for hosting and what will be the financial sheet to cover that care."
On the other hand, the President of the Canary Islands thanked the possibility of explaining, in the interministerial body, the situation that is being experienced in the Canary Islands, where the Minister of Childhood assured him that she had already carried out a simulation of a distribution by autonomous communities according to the number of unaccompanied minors who were in Spain.
While the agreement arrives, "we will continue to care for each and every one of the minors who arrive in the Canary Islands, but we cannot strain the situation further because the rights of boys and girls and also of the citizens of the Canary Islands are violated."