The Nationalist Group (CC-PNC) in the Cabildo of Lanzarote presented this Wednesday at a press conference, through three of its councilors -Pedro San Ginés, Migdalia Machín and Samuel Martín, an economic and social Rescue Plan to the Cabildo of Lanzarote, which includes measures and actions aimed primarily "at protecting employment" and that "would soften the tremendous impact of the Covid-19 pandemic." Measures that they claim to have been proposing to the first institution since the beginning of the crisis.
For the spokesperson of CC in the Cabildo, Pedro San Ginés, "the diagnosis of the situation in Lanzarote after a year of pandemic without aid is truly devastating." “We are the island where unemployment has increased the most in all of the Canary Islands (77%), an island where more of the active population does not work (53% compared to 33% in the Canary Islands), an island where practically 30% of the active population is in ERTE compared to 8% in the Canary Islands, an island where 500 companies have disappeared (10% of those existing, compared to 6% in the Canary Islands); and as if this were not enough, when public works were most needed, 93% have not been executed, the worst percentage in history.”
Despite this, “we are saddened by the complacency of a Cabildo that, after a year of the pandemic, must be the only one in the Canary Islands that has not yet allocated a single euro in direct aid to the most vulnerable productive fabric (self-employed, micro-enterprises and small businesses), limiting itself to reflecting in its Strategic Subsidy Plan the will to enable in the future 6 meager million euros that do not even have a budget allocation yet," he lamented.
On the other hand, the nationalists have stressed that "after the devastation suffered by the service sector and despite the fact that the construction, rehabilitation and improvement works of public space by the administrations was essential to alleviate the fall in employment, just in 2020, when the island most needed to accelerate investments, the Cabildo of Lanzarote barely executed four million of its investment budget."
“Only 7%, which, in all probability, is the lowest investment percentage in all of the Canary Islands and, proven, the lowest of those with historical data in Lanzarote,” San Ginés has nuanced.
That is why the nationalists insist that "Lanzarote must demand that the State and the Autonomous Community act quickly", although they consider that "the Island Council has the moral responsibility and the real opportunity to use a more ambitious percentage of the 100 million euros that it inherited and that the State allows it to use to implement a true Rescue Plan for the Island Economy, as the best Social Rescue Plan."
Measures
This plan brings together a package of measures that have been listed and explained by the CC-PNC councilors Migdalia Machín and Samuel Martín. Among them, it is proposed to increase the item foreseen in the Strategic Subsidy Plan from 6 to 15 million euros and modify the bases in several aspects, "especially to extend the aid, which today only reaches micro-enterprises, to small companies with up to 50 workers."
Likewise, the nationalists propose to enable new specific items of aid to the livestock and camel sector for food expenses, to the inputs of the cheese factories and recover aid to the small fishing sector, "as they promised and continue to fail to comply." CC also asks the Cabildo to provide the island with a "powerful" agricultural mobile park and that, in coordination with the town councils, land banks be enabled to be made available to entrepreneurs in the primary sector.
Another measure included in this plan is to "enable the funds and also implement the commitment, not consigned in budgets, to attend to the CC amendment for a Plan of specific aid to the Sports and Cultural Sector, not only affected, but directly forced to close, in the case of culture only on the island of Lanzarote";
The nationalists also propose to "immediately issue the bases to implement the Youth Entrepreneurship Plan for the creation of companies approved in the budgets at the proposal of CC-PNC; and "promote the hiring of young people with training in internships, to reinforce the most needed departments."
Likewise, they demand that the Cabildo "reinforce immediately but temporarily and for reasons of urgency with an express public offer, all the departments that require it. (Treasury, Intervention, Contracting, Social Services etc)", and "reconsider the refusal to adopt an ERTE in the Art, Culture and Tourism Centers, (with more than 300 employees with zero tourism) as the main measure to protect workers and public coffers."
CC also demands "to reactivate and convene for the first time in the mandate the Council of the Biosphere Reserve as the best instrument and only island body of broad social and economic spectrum, for the collection of funds from the Recovery Plan for Europe, which will be more ecological, digital and resilient" and as an example puts the project 'Arrecife Capital of the Biosphere Reserve'.
La Graciosa, FDCAN funds and works
It also requests that "the plenary commitment to provide two million euros to aid to the town councils for job-generating projects" be attended to and that "the island of La Graciosa, highly dependent on tourism, be provided with a specific plan for economic, environmental and public space beautification recovery."
On the other hand, the nationalists demand that the Government of the Canary Islands be required "to replace the FDCAN items for each of the islands, cut by 50% with the favorable vote of the president."
CC also proposes that the "urgency" of the administrative contracting processes "that require it and the Law allows" be decreed and that the adoption coordinated by all the municipalities that comprise it (5 of 7) and propose the same to the rest, of a set of measures that alleviate the tax burden of companies" be promoted from the Island Tax Network, which is chaired by the institution.
Another of the measures that it proposes is to give a "boost to the largest works plan with an assured financial file of Lanzarote: 19.2 million euros of the Integral Water Cycle, agreed with the Ministry in the past term (Irrigation network to the north, 5 million euros; four agreements with the Ministry, 8 million euros; projects of the Island Water Council, 5 million euros; projects of the Consortium, 1.2 million euros)".
Similarly, they demand "the creation once and for all of the thousand times promised and never constituted technical-political cabinet for the consensual design of some Plan to face this situation, which Lanzarote lacks, where the government decides unilaterally, ignoring an opposition from which it demands its support."
Demand from the Canarian Government a specific plan for the eastern islands
In addition to all these measures, the Nationalist Group also proposes to address the State and the Autonomous Community to demand a tourist and economic Rescue Plan for the Canary Islands and specific to the eastern islands "to protect employment." “If Spain asked for a specific Rescue Plan from Europe, if the Canary Islands asks Spain for a specific Rescue Plan for the economy, Lanzarote and Fuerteventura must demand a specific Rescue Plan for the eastern islands, because all the indicators point to a dramatic situation in these two islands in comparative terms,” the nationalists have highlighted.
Finally, CC has insisted that "the Cabildo must abandon complacency with the central and regional governments and awaken to the dramatic reality of Lanzarote, to alleviate the tremendous impact of this crisis with measures and actions aimed primarily at protecting employment."
