The parliamentary majority of the Senate supports the signing of a "co-responsibility" agreement, coordinated by the Government, before the end of the year, so that the autonomous communities can care for unaccompanied immigrant children and adolescents, thus alleviating the "emergency" situation suffered by the Canary Islands, Ceuta, and Melilla.
It has not been voted on yet, but the motion in this regard by the senator from the Gomera Socialist Group (ASG), Fabián Chinea, will pass thanks to the support of the PSOE, among other groups, and because the proponent has accepted a socialist amendment that, in short, extended the deadline for signing the agreement with the autonomous regions until December 31, while the initial initiative set the limit at July 31.
What Chinea has not accepted is an amendment that the senator from the Canarian Coalition, Fernando Clavijo, wanted to slip into the text of the motion and that referred to the situation in Western Sahara.
Although the Chamber's Bureau finally accepted that it be debated in the Plenary and Clavijo was able to defend it, the proposing group did not want to incorporate it, and not because it "was not fair", but because it "had nothing to do with the subject of the motion", Chinea stressed.
Clavijo's amendment read as follows: "The Government's return to the position of resolving the Western Sahara dispute through compliance with United Nations resolutions, which guarantee the right to self-determination of the Sahrawi people".
In addition, Clavijo has added a phrase taken, according to him, from the PSOE's electoral program, and that is what he demands: "Work to achieve a solution to the conflict that is fair, definitive, mutually acceptable, and respectful of the principle of self-determination of the Sahrawi people, as well as to promote the supervision of human rights in the region, favoring dialogue between Morocco and the Polisario Front, with the participation of Mauritania and Algeria, key partners of Spain".
The motion that will pass urges the signing of a State pact between all political forces with representation in the Cortes to address, as a matter of utmost priority, the management of migratory flows in Spain, "guaranteeing the protection of the fundamental rights of migrants and the solidarity of the different autonomous territories".
During the defense of his initiative, Chinea referred to the refugee crisis caused by the war in Ukraine, "which must be faced", but he emphasized the need to "not forget other wars or the situation in the Sahel countries that forces many immigrants to abandon their countries".
"Many of those who arrive in the Canary Islands come from these hot spots in the Sahel, but they do not have the same attention or rights and are not offered international protection," he stressed.
