PHOTOS: Sergio Betancort
The Government Groups of the Councils of Lanzarote and Fuerteventura have held several working meetings this Tuesday at the Lanzarote Island institution. This meeting is due to the agreement reached between the island's president, María Dolores Corujo, and her counterpart, Blas Acosta, to coordinate joint actions in certain strategic areas for both islands. The intention of both island leaders is that these meetings "be maintained over time, with the periodicity that circumstances advise."
The president of the Cabildo of Fuerteventura has pointed out that both islands share a structural deficit in terms of basic public services. "These years of misgovernment in the Canary Islands have coincided with the largest population growth experienced by Fuerteventura without education or health having received the necessary investments to guarantee the quality of these essential services," he reproached.
Acosta believes that "the time has come for both Lanzarote and Fuerteventura to recover from the backwardness to which they have been condemned by sectarian distributions of the autonomous budget and by the total absence of a clear policy that allows them to face with guarantees the strong demographic growth experienced by both islands."
Need to face "the housing crisis"
For her part, María Dolores Corujo has stressed the need to face the housing crisis suffered by both islands, in which "demographic growth and vacation rentals have combined to cause an intolerable rise in housing, both for sale and for rent, precisely at a time when precariousness has increased the most and in which workers have lost the most purchasing power."
"We need to make up for lost time as there have been too many years in which public housing has been the great pending issue of the Government of the Canary Islands," he said. For this reason, he recalled that Fuerteventura has approved an island housing consortium "from which we would like to know its strategies and how they coordinate their actions, linked to the city councils and the autonomous government."
Corujo has also insisted on the need to address from the island level, with the involvement of the Government of the Canary Islands, care for the elderly and dependents: "It cannot be that the quality and frequency with which these services are enjoyed depends on the postal code in which you reside, it is about gaining efficiency and, above all, gaining equity."
Both Acosta and Corujo agreed that Lanzarote and Fuerteventura not only share problems but also enjoy common opportunities. In this sense, the president of the Cabildo of Lanzarote has pointed out "the opportunity for both islands of European policies related to sustainability and the blue economy," while Acosta has pointed out the need to adapt the training offer at all levels to the new employment niches that these new policies will entail.
Finally, both leaders have pointed out the need to improve the control of island waters, "trying to avoid the loss of lives," and the care of unaccompanied minors, in accordance with the provisions of international law.
