Nueva Canarias-Bloque Canarista (NC-bc) considers that one year after the massive mobilizations of April 20, the Canarian Government "has not moved a finger and the same problems of an unsustainable development model that affects the environment and has consequences in the difficulties of access to housing or the saturation of public services" continue. For the Canarian formation, the CC and PP Executive raises demands to other administrations (residence law or limitation of the purchase of homes by foreigners), while denying the implementation of a tourist tax, rejecting the moratorium and not being willing to establish limits to growth, issues that are within its competence and that are much more decisive.
NC-bc values those mobilizations of 2024 that questioned the dysfunctions of the prevailing economic model in the Islands and raised the need to make it more environmentally, economically and socially sustainable. With the participation in the streets of tens of thousands of people and a set of demands that "have not been heard by the Government of the Canary Islands of the two rights that continues with its development policies, exacerbating problems that are negatively affecting those who live in our land, significantly due to population growth and the increasing difficulties of access to housing".
"Without forgetting the problems of wealth distribution, as evidenced by the conflict in the Canarian hotel industry this Easter, with reasonable requests from the unions that demand an improvement in the working and economic conditions of workers in record times of income in the sector," they point out. From NC-bc "we support their demands and value the agreements reached in the eastern islands, while we regret the intransigence of the employers in the western islands".
Moratorium and guidelines
The Canarian formation defends putting limits on tourism growth, which is decisive in the population growth of the Canary Islands by 600,000 more inhabitants so far this century. Which has consequences -together with the impact of the 18 million annual visitors- on energy and water consumption, on the needs in water purification, on the size of public services or on the difficulties of access to housing. As well as in mobility, with permanent traffic jams, and in coexistence, as is happening in other areas of the world with tourist overcrowding.
It also recalls that it is not the first time that mobilizations have taken place in this area. And, also, institutional responses. With the Lanzarote moratorium of the late twentieth century. Or, between 1999 and 2003, the approval of laws that stopped growth. Among them, Law 6/2001 on urgent measures in matters of Territorial Planning and Tourism of the Canary Islands (known as the moratorium law), which declassified some 300,000 beds and made it possible, among other things, to save the Veneguera ravine in which it was intended to develop a project of tens of thousands of beds, protection later ratified with a specific law on it. Measures that did not cost a single euro to the public coffers, although Clavijo falsely reiterates the opposite.
And, also, with the law of guidelines for general planning and the corresponding guidelines for tourism (Law 19/2003), unanimously approved by Parliament. Laws that put a brake on growth, establishing annual limits on the number of new beds and their link to quality criteria in the tourist islands; and with a differentiated treatment for the green islands. Favoring the reform of the obsolete plant compared to the occupation of more territory. Betting on quality versus quantity, on the qualification and diversification of the offer. Promoting the renovation of tourist cities, as well as better training of the sector's personnel.
Unfortunately, what was legislated in 2003, after an enriching social debate that lasted for more than two years, was intentionally forgotten by subsequent governments. Governments that were failing to comply with the mandate of the guidelines and returned to the path of development.
Sustainable model and quality of life
Nueva Canarias-Bloque Canarista has always expressed its concern about the development model. Expressing it in different proposals in the Parliament of the Canary Islands aimed at moving towards a sustainable and self-centered model, which helps to reduce its negative effects on the territory and the environment and represents a significant improvement in the quality of life of the Canarians, breaking with the inertia that places us at the head of the nationalities and regions in poverty, inequality and low wages.
Finally, it states that "one year after 20A, the main problems that those demonstrations denounced have been increasing. The transformative will expressed in the Canarian streets by tens of thousands of people, who demanded to modulate growth and a better distribution of wealth in the Islands, has not achieved any response from the Government of the Canary Islands".
