EFE
The President of the Government, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, will visit the island of Gran Canaria this afternoon and participate in a rally in La Laguna (Tenerife), after presiding over the first meeting of the Council of Ministers in Madrid after the summer holidays.
Sources from the Government Delegation in the Canary Islands informed Efe that Rodríguez Zapatero will arrive at the Gando air base (Gran Canaria) at 2:30 p.m. (local time) and will go to the summit of the island of Gran Canaria to visit the area affected by the fires that occurred on July 21 and consumed 153 hectares of forest.
Afterwards, at 7:00 p.m. (local time), he will participate in the political event in Tenerife, with which he will open the political year.
The visit to the summit of Gran Canaria, initially scheduled for August 5, had been suspended a day earlier due to a fibrillar injury suffered by the president in his left leg while playing basketball.
The La Laguna rally had been set, in turn, for August 20, but Rodríguez Zapatero postponed it due to the accident in which 17 Spanish soldiers died in Afghanistan.
The political event in Tenerife will be held at the Sánchez Bacallado celebration and congress center in Guamasa, in the municipality of La Laguna.
The meeting will begin with the intervention of the socialist councilor in the La Laguna City Council, Javier Abreu, and will continue with the national deputy of the PSOE for Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Gloria Rivero, as well as the general secretary of the Tenerife socialists, José Miguel Rodríguez Fraga.
Subsequently, the general secretary of the PSOE in the Canary Islands, Juan Carlos Alemán, will take the floor, and the President of the Government, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, will close the event.
The president arrived with his family on August 2 in Lanzarote to spend the summer at the "La Mareta" residence, in Costa Teguise, and during his stay he has toured several areas of the island of volcanoes.
On the same day of his arrival, he made an official visit to the Cabildo de Lanzarote and on the 13th he made an official visit to the islands of La Gomera and El Hierro.
Although the definitive return to Madrid was initially scheduled for August 25 to preside over the first meeting of the Council of Ministers the following day, Zapatero will remain in Lanzarote until the 31st, sources from his security detail informed Efe.
