The President of the Canary Islands, Ángel Víctor Torres, has announced in Parliament that the outermost regions, including the Canary archipelago, will be exempt from the green tax on fuel in maritime and air transport between the islands, under a 2008 European directive.
In a parliamentary response to the spokesperson for ASG, Casimiro Curbelo, the president detailed that, once the exemption from the green tax until 2030 has been guaranteed for connectivity between the outermost regions and the states to which they belong, and also for inter-island transport, "the most difficult part remains, extending the exemption to transport with third countries."
It will be difficult to achieve this "because it is an international regulation", but "we are going to try to overcome this situation", said Ángel Víctor Torres. However, he highlighted the unanimous agreement on these issues reached last week in Martinique at the summit of presidents of the outermost regions.
For his part, the president wanted to highlight the relevance of the Martinique summit, which allowed progress in unanimity not only regarding the exemption from the green tax on transport, but also in the support achieved for the Canary Islands to be the headquarters of the European Tourism Agency. Likewise, he acknowledged that the support obtained from the European Commissioner for Cohesion and Reforms, Elisa Ferreira, has been fundamental.
In response to the PSOE deputy Nira Fierro, the president stressed that the express support of the Government of Spain and the rest of the outermost regions has been achieved. "We are on our way to achieving it," said Ángel Víctor Torres, although the Canary Islands compete with other European tourist destinations, although the archipelago's advantage is that it has more overnight stays.
The President of the Canary Islands also valued that at the summit of the nine outermost regions it has been unanimously supported that the European Union should be involved with the migratory phenomenon in the territories that are borders, so that it appears in the future Pact on Asylum and Migration of the European Union.
Torres stressed that in November the Canary Islands will assume the presidency of the conference of the outermost regions and on this occasion it will coincide in the last six months of 2023 with the Spanish presidency of the EU.
Finally, he considered that this circumstance is very relevant and indicated that the coincidence of the French presidency of the EU and that of Martinique of the conference of the ORs has been very important for the extension until 2030 of the exemption of the green tax on kerosene in communications between the outermost regions and the territory of the states to which they belong.
