ACN
Coalition Canaria (CC), through its Secretary of the Environment, Belén Allende, believes that the designation of the Archipelago as a Specially Sensitive Marine Zone (ZMES), a declaration made by the International Maritime Organization (IMO), "should not be misinterpreted, but should serve as an incentive for the consideration in the Congress of Deputies of the Coalición Canaria initiative on the definition of Canarian spaces to continue and this historical claim to prosper".
Allende believes that the Government of the Canary Islands, through the Vice-Ministry of the Environment, "has worked tirelessly so that, finally, the Canary Islands Archipelago has this consideration from the IMO".
"Now we have more guarantees against possible spills into the sea and, in addition, we are in a position to accelerate the procedures for the Canary Islands to have a contingency plan to safeguard our waters. This plan, which began to take shape in 2001, now receives its definitive boost after the IMO declaration. In fact, it is the intention of Coalición Canaria that the reform of the Statute should contemplate, once this recognition has been completed, that the Government of the Canary Islands assumes the powers derived from having a plan of these characteristics", says Allende.
The nationalist deputy also fears that some who have rushed to sell the excellences of the recognition of the Canary Islands as a particularly sensitive area intend to "camouflage certain timid positions in the debate on the recent nationalist proposal in Congress on the Canarian marine spaces".
Thus, she argues in a statement that the IMO declaration, the result of work carried out by the Government of the Canary Islands, "is good news, but no one is in a position to use it to put a bandage on what really interests the Canary Islands: defining its marine spaces".
Finally, Allende points out that the decision of the Ministry of Industry on the authorization to Repsol-YPF for oil exploration in Canarian waters should not only be limited to this new consideration of the Archipelago.
"From Coalición Canaria we maintain that the Islands hold the legitimate ownership of the powers over oil authorizations in the waters of the Archipelago and we demand that the Canarian people pronounce, through a referendum, on the eventuality of oil extraction in the vicinity of Lanzarote and Fuerteventura, in the event that the explorations have a positive result", she points out.
