A.A./A.C.
- This weekend you coincided with many representatives of APL, people like the president of the Cabildo, Inés Rojas, the mayor of Teguise, Juan Pedro Hernández, or the mayor of Arrecife, María Isabel Déniz. Has there been a serious approach with this formation towards 2007?
- It is obvious to everyone at this point that we maintain a very good relationship with the people who make up APL, and I hope that this good relationship can be consolidated, that we look for ways to add up for the 2007 elections. Of course, we are very comfortable with the way we have been working in this time, and if we put political intelligence and look for the right instrument for the elections, I am sure that we will find a formula that will be good for Lanzarote and for the Canary Islands.
- What is clear is that there is an impressive atomization of nationalism in the Canary Islands. Isn't the cake of nationalism going to be divided too much?
- It is true that there is a lot of atomization within Canarian nationalism; if we look, yes, we will realize that most of the groups have emerged from people who were not satisfied with personal desires within CC, and each one has been looking for their place demonstrating that they are nationalists in name only. I think we have to work on two lines: one is with colleagues like the ones you mentioned in Lanzarote, with Inés Rojas, with Juan Pedro Hernández, with María Isabel Déniz, with Celso Betancor, with people who can make a serious and responsible contribution, and the other way of working is with a party that I respect a lot like the PNC. The rest, good luck and fight in the space they have decided to compete in. If there wasn't so much selfishness, Canarian nationalism would be different.
- The island congress of CC is just around the corner. Although there are rumors, the truth is that there has been no talk of any official candidacy. Do you have a clear idea of what the congress will be like?
- I am clear that it will be a congress of unity, consensus and understanding among all the colleagues in Lanzarote. There has been a lot of generosity over the last two years; I would especially highlight the person who has been the reference and the one who has had the most complicated time, which is Juan Santana, who has done a very positive job that will allow the congress on the 1st to be one of understanding.
- Going back to the atomization, can you really be optimistic about repeating victory in 2007?
- I am sure that CC will win the next elections because I blindly trust the men and women who are here and in the project we represent. I think that the pruning that has been done in CC has been very positive; now new sap is emerging, with greater commitment and without personal issues. I am optimistic, but not naive, because I know that things are not going to be easy.
- By the way, what did you ask the Virgen de Los Dolores for?
- Health for everyone, which is undoubtedly the most important thing.
- For there to be health, there must also be good healthcare. We know a lot about that in Lanzarote. It seems that there are serious discrepancies now between CC and PSOE when it comes to adjusting the increase in funding in this area, right?
- I insist that the most important thing of all is health, because having health, everything else comes as an addition. We have the will, we also have the desire, we also have ideas and we just have to work. It is clear that we have discrepancies with the PSOE in terms of health funding, because the Rodríguez Zapatero Government has put on the table the money that it was supposed to put without the distribution being done in a fair and non-discriminatory way. The central government has not taken into account when making the distribution of money for healthcare the essential parameter of the number of inhabitants living in each territory and the population growth that has been registered in each of them.
- The Tenerife press said this weekend that you, the representatives of CC, had significantly hardened your discourse, especially towards the meeting you are holding today (yesterday) in Madrid to negotiate with the PSOE.
- I am leaving for Madrid now, and this afternoon (yesterday) we have the first contact, we don't know if it will be the definitive one or not, if there will be more contacts or if a bridge will be established for future meetings. We are coming with the aim of finding agreements, but we are very aware that in a matter such as healthcare at this time we are quite far apart. What we are also very clear about is that we want the preambles established last year to be fulfilled; there is a magnificent predisposition on the part of the Rodríguez Zapatero Government because they have shown a lot of receptivity. It is also true that it is very difficult for us to get them to fulfill the commitments they make, and some of them are still not materialized after a year.
- Can this circumstance of confrontation erode political relations in the Canary Islands in any way?
- No, no, not at all. What it is about now is to make things clear. If we are fulfilled to the extent agreed in the Investiture Debate, there will be no problem and we will support the Government in the General State Budgets and in the political events in which we participate. We have said repeatedly that our willingness to find agreements with the Government that is in Madrid is total.
- What happens, as I said before, is that time passes and there are agreements like the infrastructure one that have not even been signed. Doesn't this generate distrust?
- That's what the whole story is about. That's why I said before that we are very clear about what our position is, we know what we are going to propose. If there is co-responsibility on the other side, there will be no problem, and if we see that they are reluctant, we will also have to put our cards on the table.
- You saw the national political situation so complicated at the beginning of the legislature that you predicted that the general elections would finally be brought forward. Do you still think so?
- The political panorama of the State that I painted six months ago is what is happening now; I said that everything was going to get complicated, that relations with the Government's most important partner, which is Esquerra Republicana, were going to become very tense... I have said and maintain that the Catalan Statute is not going to go ahead, and that could generate a complicated situation in the political panorama of the State. The Catalan Statute will be blocked in Madrid, which could be very good for the Rodríguez Zapatero Government, but it could also make a very big hole in the tripartite in Catalonia. From there, anything is possible, from new alliances being sought in the central Government to the possibility of elections being held. There is no reason why elections cannot be called in the first semester of next year.
