The PSOE Canarias will have an important weight in the new Joint Commission on Insularity of the Congress and Senate, established this Thursday in Madrid, with the designation of the autonomous senator José Antonio Valbuena as chairman of the Board and the deputy for the province of Las Palmas, Dolores Corujo, as deputy spokesperson of the Socialist Parliamentary Group, a task that will also be carried out by the senator for Fuerteventura, Paloma Hernández.
The new commission aims to discuss and delve into issues related to the territorial singularity of the two archipelagos, the Canary Islands and the Balearic Islands, and throughout the legislature experts, public and institutional officials, as well as deputies and senators, may participate in it.
Within the Socialist Parliamentary Group, the PSOE Canarias will have a total of nine representatives, the maximum representation of the total quota of the Canary Islands, five of them as members: the deputies Esther Rodríguez and Alicia Alvarez, the deputies Sergio Matos and Luc André Diouf, the senator Ramón Morales and the senator Marta Arocha. The spokesperson for the group will be Milena Herrera from the Balearic Islands.
Both Dolores Corujo and Valbuena have highlighted the possibilities offered by this new body of the Courts for the Canary Islands, both for the analysis of issues of vital significance for the island territories and for the supervision of financing and other needs that involve addressing these specificities, among which would be the housing market, the economic and fiscal regimes or different variables related to transport and connectivity, the strong dependence on tourism as the main engine of GDP, the fight against climate change or the social bloc.
“This is the first time that there will be a permanent commission on insularity, at the proposal of the PSOE, Sumar and PP. In this way, apart from complying with a recommendation made by the Senate in the last legislature, it will allow us to analyze our singularity, anchor the REF, as well as the defense of the Statute of Autonomy, advancing in equal opportunities for the territories”, said Dolores Corujo.
For his part, Valbuena pointed out that it is “an important commission”, a continuation of the work developed in the Upper House in previous years, and that from a general point of view it will allow addressing relevant issues for both archipelagos. “The island territories share a geographical reality that makes us strongly dependent on the policies that are developed on the continents and sometimes we need to articulate nuances so that these policies that are designed are really effective in the island territories”.
