The mayor of Haría, Alfredo Villalba, has denounced the institutional abandonment suffered by the municipality after being left without access to the Municipal Cooperation Plan, a key tool for financing essential projects for citizens. This situation occurs after the Cabildo of Lanzarote saw the Integrated Action Plan (PAI) submitted to the EDUSI-FEDER 2021-2027 European funds call rejected, thus leaving the town, like the rest of the island's municipalities, without access to these resources.
"They took away the Municipal Cooperation Plan from us with the promise of a new financing route that never materialized. Now, after the rejection of the PAI, Haría finds itself without financial support. The consequences of this political decision fall directly on our neighbors, who see projects for the development of the municipality paralyzed," Villalba declared.
The mayor recalled that the Municipal Cooperation Plan is a legally recognized mechanism, designed to guarantee fair financing among municipalities, regardless of their size or revenue-raising capacity. "It was a vital tool for all municipal localities, especially the smallest ones, to have access to basic investments on equal terms," he said.
Villalba criticized the island's government group, formed by the Canarian Coalition and the Popular Party, for having acted "without planning, without rigor, and without any institutional respect towards the town councils." "You can't govern on a whim. The president of the Cabildo of Lanzarote, Oswaldo Betancort, promised an alternative that has failed. Today we see that it was just another lie, because they haven't even managed to get that plan admitted," he lamented.
Along the same lines, Villalba warned that Haría, like many other towns on this island, "is paying the consequences of an improvised management far removed from the local reality."
"It is the first time that the island has been left without a plan or a real alternative. What the Cabildo has done is not just a technical error: it is a complete institutional abandonment," Villalba concluded.
The Haría City Council demands the immediate restitution of the Municipal Cooperation Plan, as well as the acceptance of responsibility for an unprecedented situation in Lanzarote, which has left the municipalities in a situation of economic and legal vulnerability.