The Government of the Canary Islands rejects the proposal for the new financing system promoted by the Government of Spain, considering that it violates the principle of equality among all citizens and penalizes, unjustifiably, the islands compared to the rest of the autonomous communities.
The vice president of the regional Executive and Minister of Economy, Industry, Trade, and Self-Employed, Manuel Domínguez, stated that Canary Islands "cannot accept a model that consolidates economic differences between Spaniards based on their place of residence. We demand that this model be changed and not approved as they have proposed because, otherwise, we will have a serious problem in our land."
In fact, he explained that **the state proposal places the archipelago among the communities with the lowest per capita funding**, "despite its greater structural needs derived from remoteness, territorial fragmentation, and our outermost region status".
From the Canary Islands Government, it is warned that this approach taken by the State not only fails to correct existing imbalances but exacerbates them, relegating the islands to the last place in funding among common-law territories. "This situation compromises the archipelago's ability to guarantee quality public services and maintain social cohesion," Domínguez warned.
The vice president, in the same way, regretted that the proposal was not the result of multilateral negotiation, nor was it agreed upon with all the autonomous communities. "It is a unilateral agreement, a 'Junqueras plan' that ignores the singularities and real needs of a territory like ours. For that reason, we demand that the State immediately open a process of collective dialogue that allows us to move towards a fair, balanced, and supportive funding model."
Domínguez also rejected the idea that obtaining **additional state resources** would be based on increased fiscal pressure, a rise in regional debt, or the reduction of essential compensatory measures like the 75% resident discount on travel. "We will not allow them to keep reaching into our people's pockets because they have already done so 90 times to raise our taxes. Any reform of the system must guarantee financial sustainability without transferring that cost to citizens, nor putting key policies for territorial equality at risk."
The Canary Islands Government, as the vice president emphasized, will act with determination to defend the archipelago's interests and prevent it from being treated as a second-class community. "We will go to the last episode, even if it has to be the courts, to defend this land. Our goal is to ensure that the Canary Islands are part of the Spanish train on conditions of equality; we will not allow them to turn us into the caboose, and we will fight for sufficient funding to meet the present and future needs of the Canary Islanders."
Finally, Manuel Domínguez reiterated that regional financing "is a strategic issue for the development of the Canary Islands and, for that reason, this regional government will continue to defend, in all necessary spheres, a system that respects equality between territories, recognizes the unique characteristics of the archipelago, and guarantees the well-being of its citizens," he concluded
