The President of the Canary Islands, Fernando Clavijo, proposed this Monday to the President of the Government of Spain, Pedro Sánchez, the elaboration of a Decree Law with specific issues for the Canary Islands in order to comply with the commitments acquired after the signing of the Canary Islands Agenda. This request was made at the meeting between both presidents in the Cabildo of Lanzarote during this day.
In this sense, Clavijo offered "to prepare the draft ourselves and to seek the necessary support for its approval, as we have done with the minors, because time passes and the issues that are vital for our land are left in the background, by introducing it in omnibus decrees that do not reach the majorities in Congress or waiting for some General Budgets that never arrive".
After the last meeting held on the Canary Islands Agenda, last July, it was already evident "the need to relaunch the Canary Islands agenda and the commitment of the government interlocutors in that line, but so far nothing has been done", lamented the president.
Therefore, "the issues that should be included in that Decree" are the guarantee of the 60% deduction of the Personal Income Tax for the citizens of La Palma and its reconstruction, but while the agreed items arrive, we should be able to use the surpluses of the local corporations for the reconstruction of the island in addition to assuming the costs of the care of accompanied minors.
Likewise, Clavijo highlighted the "importance of including also the advance of the debt that is contracted with the Canary Islands within the framework of the additional POSEI", a line of aid that the Government of Spain pays as a complement to the EU compensation measures for the promotion of the primary sector in the Ultraperipheral Regions (UPR). At this moment, 24.93 million euros are owed corresponding to the years 2023, 2024 and 2025.
"It is very important to take care of the primary sector, of our agricultural environment, because the depopulation of rural areas causes, precisely, the fires that we suffer, and that at this moment are especially virulent in the Peninsula", to whose affected the president sent a message of solidarity and affection.
In turn, the Canarian president insisted that the reinforcement of the electrical system in the Canary Islands should be included in that Decree, "whose infrastructures are obsolete and there is always the risk of repeating blackouts like those suffered in Tenerife and La Gomera, and more recently in La Palma and it is necessary to assess the installation of portable infrastructures also in Lanzarote or Fuerteventura", islands in which hydraulic works are urgent to face the water emergency.
Fernando Clavijo insisted that "these are vital issues for the islands and for the Canarians, as are also the updating of the standard transport costs, the extension of the road agreement and the sufficient and necessary allocation to complement the non-contributory benefits in the Canary Islands, of which the majority of its beneficiaries are women".
In the meeting, held in the Cabildo of Lanzarote, there was also an opportunity to take stock of the pending items to be entered related to the Employment and Poverty Plans, which are being processed, "and in the end it is necessary to give a push in the last quarter which makes management difficult, so we have agreed to resume the meetings to make them effective, because they are included in the extended budgets", he added.
Another of the claims that Fernando Clavijo raised to Pedro Sánchez, is the need for the State to get involved in the strategy, promoted by the Autonomous Government, with Portugal and France to defend, in the European sphere, the statute of Ultraperipheral Region and that their specific funds are not diminished in the next Budget of the Union. "In this matter, the president has agreed with the position of the Canary Islands that the funds should not be transferred to the Member States because if the way of fitting the Canary Islands into the European Union disappears, our advantages to advance in equal conditions to the rest of the territories would disappear".
Minors
Regarding the transfer of minors with the right to asylum, Clavijo insisted to President Sánchez that their transfer "has to be accelerated, because more arrive than leave and that does not solve the situation of these boys and girls, nor their situation of overcrowding that, let us remember, the Supreme Court has urged to solve". "For our part, we have informed him that we know the NGOs with places to welcome them", he added.
