They say that correcting is wise. A phrase that is accurate as long as the intention is to do good. But this is not, I fear, what the Government of the Canary Islands intends to do with the announcement that it will paralyze Decree 113/2015 on the rental of holiday homes.
If despite the fact that the previous Canarian Government, by the way of the same color as the current one, held endless meetings with social and political agents and with the representatives of the Canarian Association of Holiday Rentals (ASCAV), despite the promises and commitments and mandates of the Parliament, left 53,000 families stranded, many of them doomed to ruin, who assures us today that the new Executive will not do the same?
I must regret that when analyzing the Non-Law Proposal (PNL) that CC and PSOE took to the last plenary session of the Parliament of the Canary Islands and carefully read its content, I come to the conclusion that CC and the PSOE once again reiterate that behavior of publicly saying the opposite of what they later execute from the Government. And I say this because I must warn that the PNL does not show any intention to modify the Decree.
In the text of the PNL, CC and PSOE request on the one hand the paralysis of the Decree and on the other the paralysis in sanctioning matters. We agree on the paralysis of the Decree with respect to sanctioning matters. But really, what does it mean to paralyze the Decree? Perhaps repeal it?
The legal concept of paralysis means stopping the legal act, so that if it has not occurred, it is not born and, if it has already begun, it does not continue, it does not continue, its consequences are paralyzed. And I wonder, are they going to paralyze the "legality" of the homes that are outside the tourist areas? Or from the paralysis, are these homes going to return to the situation of illegality? Is it perhaps that what they are proposing is the tacit repeal of the Decree?
As you will see, only legal doubts assail me and it is my obligation as a regional parliamentarian to share them and warn of their consequences.
What CC and PSOE have included in their PNL is at least so inaccurate and ambiguous that the Popular Parliamentary Group that I represent is unaware of the legal scope of the measure they are proposing; and the worst thing is, this paralysis can lead to situations of legal uncertainty.
They also talk about the revision and re-elaboration of the Decree in coordination with the agents and institutions involved. What does this mean? To start meetings again to delay as long as possible the entry into force of a Decree that effectively regulates holiday homes and thus continue to benefit a few?
We greatly fear that this is a trap with a single intention: that the regulation of holiday rentals sleeps the sleep of the just.
They do not realize or do not want to see that the sensible thing would be the immediate modification of Decree 113/2015 in accordance with the opinion of the National Commission of Markets and Competition. The sensible thing would be for holiday homes to be regulated by their condition as "homes" and not to be linked to land or urban plans; the most logical thing is to proceed with the inclusion of Bed & Breakfast as another form of tourist accommodation, as all the parliamentary groups of the previous legislature and the current President of the Government when he was a candidate committed to. The most appropriate thing is to eliminate from the Decree the habituality of the lessor in the activity and holiday purpose to the lessee.
We are not going to participate in the great circus that the regional Executive and the groups that support it in the Chamber want to create with this issue; not at all, we do not want to be participants in the paralysis of the modification of the Decree.
We are going to continue fighting for sanity and above all for legality, urging the Canarian Government to immediately modify the Decree in order to make it compatible with the opinion issued by the National Commission of Markets and Competition. Because we are not going to allow that, overnight, these 53,000 families become absolutely illegal as a result of the imposition of a Decree.
*Astrid Pérez, regional deputy for the island of Lanzarote