The parliamentarian of Nueva Canarias-Bloque Canarista (NC-BC) Natalia Santana defended this Monday, in parliamentary commission, the establishment of a tax on tourist stays that exempts Canarian residents. Thus, the spokesperson for the parliamentary group in the matter maintained that this tax must have a specific purpose.
Santana proposed that "the collection be invested in the change of model that the Canary Islands needs to ensure the economic, social and environmental future". Thus, she reproached the Government of CC and the PP for "ignoring a large part of the population of the islands, which on April 20 mobilized in the streets under the slogan Canary Islands has a limit".
After recently listening to the Minister of Tourism and Employment, Jessica de León, who “rejected the tourist tax so as not to plunder the Canarians any more”, Natalia Santana once again defended, as NC did in 2015 and 2018 when presenting two bills that were rejected by the Canarian right, the need to implement this tax as “part of the change of model that our land needs”.
A tax proposal that has a specific purpose, as in the Balearic Islands and Barcelona where it is in force, and from which Canarian residents are exempt. Santana recalled that it was included on April 24 through a motion by the Canarian group in the Chamber that contained seven measures to "reorient the tourism model towards the economic, social and environmental sustainability of the Canary Islands. It was rejected with the votes of CC, the PP, the ASG, the AHI and Vox".
“Our speech has always been the same”, Santana stressed, and the Canarian citizens “shouted” for that change of model on April 20. But the CC and PP Executive “has not listened to it”, she reproached.
The deputy detailed "the existence of a housing emergency, declarations of climate and water emergency in some islands and city councils that are considering rationalizing water while CC and the PP approve new tourist beds in Lanzarote, Fuerteventura and Tenerife". The situation, according to Santana, “is not to be trifled with”.
For Nueva Canarias-BC it is time to implement the tourist tax because the sector has “muscle” to sustain a tax of a specific nature, which residents would not pay and which can be regulated with a law, she stressed.
The Canarian parliamentarian estimated that more than 200 million euros can be raised, without affecting the tax pressure on residents and with the possibility of adding to the 302 million euros that will increase the Canarian budgets in 2025.
Natalia Santana denounced that the Government of CC and the PP “cannot continue to make excuses or play the constant contradiction”.
