Coalición Canaria (CC) wants to reach a "basic" agreement with the Canarian Socialist Party (PSC-PSOE) regarding the reform of the electoral system. This could involve including in the Statute of the Canary Islands the possibility of developing, in a future law, an autonomous constituency, but without lowering the thresholds. Thus, the aim is for the text to be approved this legislature, given the "rumors" that priority may be given to other autonomous proposals.
This was expressed by the Minister of the Presidency of the Government of the Canary Islands, José Miguel Ruano, after the meeting of the Governing Council, and he announced an extraordinary session of the Plenary of the Parliament of the Canary Islands to hold the debate on the communication of the reform of the Statute of Autonomy of the Canary Islands.
Ruano justified this call arguing that, with the session period already open, practically at its end, in the Congress of Deputies, "a pronouncement from the new Parliament of the Canary Islands was necessary." The will, according to Ruano, is to invite all parliamentary groups to a basic agreement on the text of the Statute so that it is possible for it to see the light in this legislature of the State, since he assured that there are "indications" that it intends to give priority to other autonomous texts.
"There are indications or rumors that there may be a willingness to advance some of the other statutory proposals, we have no interest in any being left on the table but above all that ours is not left and in the basic terms that were approved in the Canary Islands," he declared in this regard.
Ruano insisted on the intention to reach a "basic agreement" on the "basic terms" that emanated from the Parliament of the Canary Islands on September 13, 2006, and recalled that these basic terms "are respected in the set of amendments agreed between CC and PP, and we hope to reach an agreement with the PSOE."
"The PSOE demanded an agreement with the PP, we made that effort and a set of amendments have been presented, so we hope that they will do the same and that from the autonomous point of view they are in a position to support amendments that the PP supports," he clarified.
ELECTORAL LAW
These "basic terms" to which Ruano refers have to do with the definition of the Canary Islands, the territorial definition, the adaptation of State policies to the geographical situation of the Canary Islands, the incorporated powers of the LOTRAC or respect for the REF.
However, he recalls that the PSOE focuses its acceptance of the statutory text on the reform of the electoral system. In this sense, the Minister of the Presidency assures that his party is willing to "deal with all matters with the PSOE, but we understand that the basic terms of an electoral reform can be established in a Statute but the development of an electoral system is done by each Autonomous Parliament, as has been done in the rest of the Statutes approved to date."
In this sense, he does not rule out that the inclusion of an autonomous constituency for a future law may be considered in the statutory text, but without including the lowering of thresholds in this text.
Ruano accepted that his party will have to make concessions if they want to reach an agreement "as long as the text that emanated from the Canary Islands on September 13, 2006, is respected in basic terms."
ACN Press
