A.A.
The predictions of the Government's rupture were fulfilled. Finally, the Popular Party was left out. Why?
It was a situation that was already unsustainable. We had been in pure conflict for six months, and in politics, as in marriage, there is also divorce. Sometimes it is better to separate.
The municipalities of Lanzarote continue to claim the historical debt. Will you put many buts to the requests of the mayors?
I don't think that issues are resolved simply with subsidies. Each Island has to have a project of development, growth and modernization, and Lanzarote needs it. So, normally in the Canary Islands, we tend to be a bit weepy, because I have also cried for 10 years in Madrid asking, but doing so from a conception that economic growth needs investments and resources, but one also has to lay the foundation so as not to pour water into a bag and it goes through the bottom. What it is about is that Lanzarote has an economic revitalization plan and I want to agree on it with the mayors and the Cabildo in its new stage. The first problem we have to reflect on is that Lanzarote has been in a critical stage for three or four years in which it is not responding to its challenges and needs the Cabildo to recover and start leading the Island and have an Island project, which it seems to me that it has not had in recent years. In La Palma, they summoned me a year ago and told me that they wanted subsidies and aid, but I replied that the subsidies should be linked to a general program, and if that money serves to modernize the economy then things are going well. I have just closed the revitalization plan of La Palma after eight months of work. I estimate that in Lanzarote it does not take so long.
The non-capital islands are often spectators of the budgetary distribution. Is a correct evaluation of the needs of each Island made?
Lanzarote is the only island that has the right to claim that its average investment in recent years is below what it needs. However, La Palma, La Gomera and El Hierro are above, but also because they had a subsidized economy and the economy of Lanzarote and Fuerteventura has been very powerful touristically until very recently. It is true that Lanzarote has an investment deficit, but the deficit is not because you distribute more or less in the budgets, but often because you do not execute what is in the budget. Here the Cabildo has worked very badly and I have great hope after all this somersault and nonsense that there has been. The Cabildo has to define an Island project and Lanzarote itself has to know how to define the things that are and are not necessary. Here something is going to be invested in and Lanzarote says no. We have to make a kind of territorial pact in which we defend the territory and the environment, but define the necessary investments to make them. When it is decided to build a road, there is immediately a campaign to prevent it from being built. A port has to be built, and another campaign to prevent it from being built. In Lanzarote we have to achieve several things. First, the will of the Government of the Canary Islands to invest, and I assure you that I have it and I am going to demonstrate it. Second, that the Cabildo defines what the priorities are and within them the businessmen of Lanzarote have to invest because we have a society that has an investment reserve, for which no corporation tax is paid to those who invest. That money does not have to be stopped there, but materialized. The businessmen say that in Lanzarote it is not possible to invest because groups appear claiming that one thing and another cannot be touched. So, if nothing is touched there is no investment. In addition, if an educational center or a health center is needed, the normal thing is for the town councils to offer land, which is their obligation and not to sell it. If they give the land I guarantee the investment, but please put the land. The story works if all parties pull the boat and take it out of the sea. There has to be a social pact to define the necessary investments for the modernization of the economic system and to generate employment. Likewise, the town councils have to support the Cabildo in that task and the Government of the Canary Islands put the resources to achieve it. I also have to challenge Lanzarote to help itself.
Has there been a lack of organization?
Political leadership. This Island has to be protected and define areas that cannot even be touched. Now, we are going to build the Port of Playa Blanca, but they come out saying that it cannot be done for one thing and another. We can agree on a necessary infrastructure with the lowest environmental cost and with corrective measures, but do not paralyze all the projects. The Puerto-Ciudad operation in Arrecife is very necessary and must be pushed forward. Who is to blame for the lack of investment? The Government of the Canary Islands, it may be. But everyone has to do their part.
Arrecife is forgotten...
It is a city that will have an exceptional quality of life in the next 10 years, but it has to let the Puerto - Ciudad project be executed to have leisure and commercial operations that complement those that exist. It is a decisive investment. I ask: Is it not that we are hindering it?
Do you demand a conjunction of efforts?
How long have they been on the General Plan? or that if there is a crisis or one thing and another. We have to assume responsibilities and not be blaming the other and be crying. Lanzarote is an Island with a lot of power. The province of Las Palmas is the one with the highest family income in Spain in recent years. I agree that Lanzarote needs a boost, but if we do not all do the mea culpa we will not cure the disease. The disease is not only neglect by the Government of the Canary Islands. I reiterate, as the minister who makes the budget, that the Island will have the support, but if they do not help from here there is no possibility.