ACN
In later statements to the meeting of the panel studying the reform of the Statute of Autonomy of the Canary Islands, Alfredo Belda assured that if the content of the powers that the central government is willing to transfer to the Canary Islands is guaranteed, CC would support the proposal even if the Popular Party opposed it because, he said, "it would increase the capacity for self-government of the Islands."
The nationalist formation has doubts that the proposal of the Canarian socialists, who ask that the reference to article 150.2 of the Constitution, which speaks of the transfer or delegation of exclusive powers of the State to the Autonomous Community, be left out of the statute, and that these powers be managed through the Lotraca. CC doubts the level of commitment from Madrid to the initiative of the Canarian PSOE and demands guarantees.
Regarding whether CC is willing to cede powers that have been included in article 35 of the text of the committee of experts (management of state taxes, customs management, foreign health, ports or airports, air transport or maritime-terrestrial zone, among others), Belda indicated that he will defend the permanence of all of them because they are "very important" for the Canary Islands.
In this regard, the spokesperson for the socialist parliamentary group guaranteed the support of the PSOE Federal Executive for the proposal put forward from the Canary Islands, which he considers "reasonable." "The party has assumed that the Canary Islands is a unique autonomous community that must have specificities and an expansion of its self-government," said Spínola.
He also stated that his party supports the same treatment for the Canary Islands as for Catalonia in terms of how to manage the exclusive powers of the State and advocated facing a double track: talking to all the political forces of the Islands to see what powers should be incorporated into the organic law and, at the same time, negotiating with the State Government the same.
Meanwhile, the spokesperson for the PP, Jorge Rodríguez, did not want to comment on the matter because he said he was unaware of the proposal. "I don't know what the socialist group will finally propose in the text and we will not comment until the approach is explained," he added.
However, he opined that it was not the best of formulas, since, he said, it is seeking "a shortcut of differential singularity with the rest of the autonomies in the statutory reform phase and now it has no reason to be."
