This Wednesday, the Non-Law Proposal (PNL) for the Recognition of the Fishing Industry and the Canning Factories in Lanzarote and for the creation of a Sea Museum in Arrecife, proposed by Nueva Canarias-Bloque Canarista (NC-BC) and the deputy Yoné Caraballo, was debated in the Parliament of the Canary Islands.
This PNL has been rejected by the groups that support the government, Coalición Canaria (CC), Partido Popular (PP), Agrupación Herreña Independiente (AHI) and Agrupación Socialista Gomera (ASG), and supported by the proposing group of NC-BC, in addition to the PSOE.
For his part, Betancort has been forceful in rejecting the PNL presented by Caraballo, calling it “meaningless”, since the Island Government, through the Fisheries area headed by Samuel Martín, has already commissioned the drafting of the project to the Chamber of Commerce of Lanzarote and La Graciosa. “We have a registered document confirming that the project will be ready in the first half of April. What is the point of this PNL if the work is already done?”, the deputy questioned.
In addition, he reproached Nueva Canarias for “their inaction during the last legislature, when they had the opportunity to promote this initiative and did not do so”. “They were in the Government from 2019 to 2023 and did not move a single thread for the conejera fishing”, Betancort criticized during his speech this Wednesday in the Plenary session held by the Parliament of the Canary Islands.
Likewise, the deputy has announced that, once the Sea Museum project is finished, he will take a PNL to Parliament to demand the necessary financing in the General Budgets of 2026. “When it is necessary to ask for real money, I hope to have the support of all political groups, because what Lanzarote needs is financing”, he concluded.
For the deputy Yoné Caraballo, who last week presented this initiative together with the Honorary Advisor of the Cabildo of Lanzarote in matters of fishing, Domingo Delgado, “the no from CC to this initiative is inexplicable and demonstrates a sectarianism that goes against the interests of Lanzarote and the Canary Islands. The deputies of CC vote against good initiatives for the island, and do not show the slightest interest in negotiating or reaching agreements to get the proposals forward. It is no for the sake of no”.
According to Caraballo, the PNL “not only urged the Government of the Canary Islands to promote the first Sea Museum, but also intended an institutional recognition by the Parliament of the Canary Islands to the fishing and canning history”. He does not understand, he comments, “that CC and, especially, the president of the Cabildo of Lanzarote and deputy Oswaldo Betancort do not show the slightest interest in reaching an agreement for the benefit of all the people of Lanzarote. They present practically no initiatives in favor of the island and vote against those that we take other groups. It is inexplicable”.
“I spoke with certain deputies from CC and PP from other islands and they expressed their bewilderment at not understanding how the CC deputies from Lanzarote were going to vote against an initiative that has all the consensus of the fishing sector of the island, since it was prepared and presented by experts who have been demanding this recognition for decades”, says Caraballo, who sees in this new rejection of CC “an anti-Lanzarote drift that harms the conejera society”.
Thus, from NC-BC they express their “outright rejection of the anti-democratic practices used by CC and hope that, at least, this initiative has served to 'dust off' the Arrecife Sea Museum project and that Oswaldo Betancor out of shame is forced to take it forward from the Cabildo”.
“The big prize for them”, says Yoné Caraballo, who feels satisfied with the work done and appreciates the support from the fishing sector and from the people who individually have expressed their satisfaction for bringing this issue to Parliament.
