This was agreed yesterday by the plenary of the Corporation, meeting urgently after the latest events in Guacimeta, which have considerably damaged the image of the Island abroad and have been a setback for the tourism sector, the main support of the conejera economy.
In the words of the mayor of the town, Jesús Machín, the strike of Iberia workers that began at the airport on June 26 is negatively impacting the image of the Island abroad, so public administrations, both local and island, the General Directorate of Labor of the Government of the Canary Islands, and Spanish Airports and Air Navigation (AENA), "we must and are obliged in some way to intervene in the conflict, since it is our institutional and political responsibility."
For this reason, the Tinajo City Council will address the Cabildo de Lanzarote in the coming days to convene a meeting with the seven City Councils of the Island so that all are involved in this problem that "we cannot allow to be prolonged for much longer."
On the other hand, the City Council, chaired by the nationalist Jesús Machín, will also contact the island director of the General State Administration, Marcial Martín Bernúdez, so that, as he did in the previous conflict that occurred at the airport and in which the cleaning service workers were affected, he also mediates on this occasion so that normality can reign again in Guacimeta.
Dependence on tourism
For Machín, "everyone knows what tourism represents for the development of Lanzarote, both economically and socially, and our dependence on it forces us to be very attentive when conflicts of this magnitude occur, due to their direct relationship with the entry and exit of our visitors." In this sense, the mayor of Tinajo considers that if the feeling that the visitor takes away from the Island is not the desired one due to the service they receive at the airport, "this seriously harms the Island as a tourist destination, which has cost us all so much effort, so we cannot allow this work to be thrown overboard due to the lack of understanding between the parties."
Jesús Machín also assured that he had received information from countries such as Germany and England, where local media were already echoing the situation that the Lanzarote airport is going through, with the consequent damage that was being caused to the Island. "We cannot allow the Island to be spoken of negatively in countries such as England and Germany because of what is happening at the airport, instead of writing about the numerous attractions that Lanzarote has," he declared. In this sense, Machín "does not see it as normal" that a tourist who returns to his country after enjoying a few days of vacation in Lanzarote, has to spend several days waiting for his suitcase to arrive, where he carried medicines, the keys to his house or work documents.
Passivity of the political class
On the other hand, Jesús Machín, who cannot understand why the Lanzarote airport is the only one on strike in all of the Canary Islands, criticized the passivity of the politicians of the Island, whom he invited to mobilize to combat this situation. In this sense, the first mayor of Tinajo pointed out that the call for new strikes by the drivers of discretionary passenger transport and the airport security guards will contribute to increasing the chaos in Guacimeta and occur because "they must have thought that we are all fools here." For all this, and as happened when the possibility was raised that a private company would buy the land of the Isleta de La Santa, in which all the City Councils of the Island and the Cabildo initiated a campaign to prevent the sale from taking place, Machín demanded that something similar happen in this case, since he showed his conviction that if "we all remain united and join forces together, the situation will be unlocked."
Other plenary agreements
The plenary, which was not attended by any representative of the Party of Independents of Lanzarote (PIL), nor by the spokesman for the socialists and senator for the island of Lanzarote, Marcos Hernández, also approved the urban planning agreement by which the entity Fedelpausch S.A. will transfer to the City Council of Tinajo the land for the construction of the future medical office of the town. In this sense, the City Council will in turn transfer this land to the Government of the Canary Islands, so that this infrastructure, which is so important for the municipality, can be up and running within a maximum period of five years. It should be remembered that the latest general budgets of the Autonomous Community already include an item for this clinic, and that if the transfer had not occurred in time, it could have been lost.
Finally, the plenary of the Corporation also approved a reduction in the tax on Real Estate, which will go from 70 to 60%.
