The company's vice president tried "unsuccessfully" to meet with Rivero

The PP demands that Steinert stop blaming the State for the cancellation of Ryanair flights and demand accountability from the Government of the Canary Islands

The spokesperson for the Popular Party in the Cabildo of Lanzarote, Angel Vázquez, has responded to the statements made by the Minister of Tourism, Carmen Steinert, in which she blames Fomento for the ...

December 5 2012 (10:17 WET)
The PP demands that Steinert stop blaming the State for the suppression of Ryanair flights and demand responsibilities from the Government of the Canary Islands
The PP demands that Steinert stop blaming the State for the suppression of Ryanair flights and demand responsibilities from the Government of the Canary Islands

The spokesperson for the Popular Party in the Cabildo of Lanzarote, Angel Vázquez, has responded to the statements made by the Minister of Tourism, Carmen Steinert, in which she blames Fomento for the cancellation of Ryanair flights. For Vázquez, "it is time for the Cabildo to stop blaming the State for all issues and direct its claims to those who also have a large part of responsibility and, most importantly, to those who, being able to contribute to arbitrating solutions, have not done so, as is the case of the Government of the Canary Islands".

"However, so far this year, we have not heard the Minister of Tourism or the President of the Cabildo echo the complaints of Ryanair and demand that Paulino Rivero maintain the commitments he made with the airlines in 2010", said the PP councilor, who also asked "if at any time, either Steinert or San Ginés, urged Rivero to meet with the airline's representatives, as they demanded for months".

Since then, the PP has stated that the Government of the Canary Islands has not adopted measures to ensure that this company maintains the routes. "Nor has it proposed a strategic connectivity plan with other low-cost airlines to supplement the losses from

route cancellations by Ryanair", Vázquez insisted.

In this regard, the councilor of the Popular Party reminded Steinert that it was Ryanair's own vice president, Michael Cawley, who last July announced the intention to cancel flights with the islands and justified said cancellation "due to breaches by the Government of the Canary Islands". "At that time, and for more than four months, the airline's vice president unsuccessfully tried to meet with Paulino Rivero to analyze and evaluate the agreement signed at the end of 2010 with the Government of the Canary Islands, which established the implementation of a promotion and marketing fund during the years 2013-2015", Vázquez denounced.

According to the PP councilor, this fund consisted fundamentally of "an incentive system" created by the regional Executive, endowed with 10 million euros annually, "to be distributed among the different companies operating in the Canary Islands". "The truth is that at the end of 2011, the Deputy Minister of the Government of the Canary Islands informed Ryanair that, although they had

budgetary availability, they had chosen not to create said fund", Vázquez explained.

For the Popular Party, the tourism policy of the regional Government "is plagued with falsehoods and contradictions, even within the Executive itself, which is enormously detrimental to a sector that constitutes the Archipelago's leading industry".

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