Lanzarote En Pie (LEP) denounces the political, budgetary, and technical emptying of the Arrecife Commerce Department after analyzing the budgetary settlements for 2024 and 2025 and the municipal budget for 2026.
For LEP, the data reflect a department that is losing real capacity to implement public policies. “The City Council budgets items for local commerce that it does not subsequently execute, leaves the area without technical structure, and does not propose its own actions beyond accompanying or disseminating initiatives from the Cabildo de Lanzarote,” they state from the organization.
According to the municipalists, from the analyzed documentation it is clear that the City Council had 150,000 euros each year for commercial promotion and 30,000 euros for direct aid to SMEs. The final execution of both items was zero euros in 2024 and 2025. For 2026, the budget again includes 30,000 euros for SMEs without the municipal government having explained why the previous ones were not spent.
"If aid is budgeted, but not executed, the aid does not exist," they point out.
Without staff and without support for commerce and markets in Arrecife
The situation worsens because the Human Resources report for 2026 leaves the personnel allocations for the Commerce area at zero. Without technicians, they warn, "it is not possible to process grants, organize municipal markets, or promote revitalization campaigns."
The spokesperson for LEP, Leticia Padilla, maintains that the allocation linked to municipal markets -15,000 euros annually- was neither executed in 2024 nor in 2025, and in the 2026 budget it disappears completely.
Given this context, Padilla recalled that "municipal markets also represent an important activity because it is self-employment, local creation, and proximity economy" and that "the PP and CC government cannot talk about local economy if it does not take care of those who produce and generate commerce in the municipality."
They demand explanations
LEP asks the mayor and the delegate councilor to publicly explain, and report at the next municipal plenary session, why the items were not executed, why the item linked to municipal markets disappears, and why the area will be left without technical personnel in 2026.
The municipalist party demands transparency about the destination of unexecuted credits and asks the City Council to clearly inform the commercial sector, self-employed individuals, those who participate in municipal markets, and the citizens of Arrecife, in general.
Lanzarote En Pie also demands a municipal strategy of its own, with truly executable aid, stable support for markets, and specific campaigns and planning for the city's neighborhoods and commercial areas.
"While many businesses continue to close their doors, the PP and CC government cannot limit itself to budgeting aid that never arrives nor expect other institutions to do their job. Taking care of local commerce is taking care of Arrecife and its neighborhoods," concludes Leticia Padilla.
