The distribution of minors will follow criteria such as the population or income of the communities

The text for the specific distribution of 4,500 migrant minors from the Canary Islands and Ceuta that the central government and the Canary Islands are working on will have "practically the same" criteria agreed with the communities in the 2022 sectoral conference, such as population or per capita income, with some corrections.

This was explained by the Minister of Youth and Childhood, Sira Rego, after meeting with the President of the Canary Islands, Fernando Clavijo, to address these criteria for the single distribution of 4,000 young people from the Canary Islands and 500 from Ceuta to alleviate the resources of these territories, which in the case of the islands care for more than 5,800 minors.

Ministry sources have specified that, with the text being worked on, all autonomous communities will have to take in some of the 4,500 children and adolescents that are intended to be distributed, to a greater or lesser extent.

The minister has not specified exactly what the agreed criteria are and has asked to let the teams of both governments work "a little more on the specifics", but she has indicated that they are practically the same as those agreed in 2022 with the autonomous regions: population, per capita income, unemployment, the effort made in reception and the dispersion of the population.

She explained that it is about making an analysis "as scientific as possible" of the situation and stressed the importance of taking into account the effort made so far by the autonomous communities in the reception system, since the current one is "quite asymmetrical at the territorial level".

In response to questions from journalists, Rego pointed out that "the economic loose ends" also need to be closed, but reiterated the government's intention to financially endow this plan "sufficiently".

For his part, Clavijo asked not to lose sight of the fact that this "is not a territorial or political problem", but that it is "a humanitarian drama" and the most important thing is to respect the rights of the child.

He gave as an example that, beyond the criteria that are agreed upon, there are other factors that will be taken into account during the application of this plan, such as that the youngest children are not transferred so as not to subject them to a second uprooting and "another trauma".

The Canarian president agreed with the minister on the importance of taking into account the previous reception effort of the communities.

"When some colleague from an autonomous community talks about being overwhelmed and having 300 and we have 5,800... it's just that we didn't have those places created either, we had to create them based on an emergency decree," he explained