We are back with the damn "insular dispute" that throughout history has been fueled by state parties to divide Canarian nationalism, and that lately have stirred up insularism, for pure partisan interest. This time, it is because of the distribution of funds from the extinct ITE.
The Government of the Canary Islands maintains that it has reports that attribute 100% of the ownership of those 160 million funds, while the seven island councils maintain that they are REF funds and therefore, in the worst case, should be distributed 58% to the islands (92.8 million distributed to the islands based on the percentages established for each of them, where in turn in each island 60% is distributed to the island councils and 40% to the town councils), reserving the government the remaining 42%, which would be equivalent to 67.2 million euros. So far and in that this is an inalienable right for the island councils, the seven island presidents agree.
It happens that the proposal formulated and supported by the vast majority of the island councils within the last meeting of the FECAI, accepted in principle by the President of the Government of the Canary Islands, in the presence of the Vice President -who did not object to anything in this regard-; is much more generous than that criterion, since the government would renounce entirely to that 42% in an unprecedented gesture of the Canary Islands Autonomous Community, which for the first time would recognize the island councils the role as an appendix of the government that the Statute of Autonomy of the Canary Islands attributes to us in the execution of that "Development Plan" and, therefore, would greatly benefit all the islands, including Gran Canaria. The key is that this is not a matter of opinion or subjective criteria, but pure arithmetic, mathematics that portrays very well the true "litigious" intentions of the Cabildo of Gran Canaria, even at the cost of harming the people of Gran Canaria whose interests it represents.
Namely, with the REF criteria that correspond to us and defended by the Cabildo of Gran Canaria, the island would correspond exactly 37.3% of the 92.8 million that the government has to distribute, that is 34.6 million euros. That is, 5.4 million less than the 40 million that would correspond to Gran Canaria if the government renounces its 67.2 million and distributes them voluntarily according to the triple parity criterion.
The Cabildo of Gran Canaria is fully entitled to claim, even to demand that the ITE funds be distributed according to the REF criteria and for that they can count on all my support, but of course Lanzarote cannot share, and will not share, that for pure insular dispute we renounce to the voluntary distribution of the funds that would correspond to the government, if it decides by common agreement with the rest of the island councils, to distribute resources whose ownership nobody disputes, according to the criterion of triple parity, because I insist, that would benefit all the islands including Gran Canaria that otherwise would lose 5.4 million, as I have already explained.
If I were Fernando Clavijo I would accede to the claim of Antonio Morales for what corresponds to them in law, but no more, unless the Cabildo of Gran Canaria intends "as it seems" to impose on the government what it should do with its own resources -the 42% that nobody disputes- and in turn impose on the remaining 6 islands that we do not accept what we agree with, because it would be silly not to be.
The weakest link in this chain are the town councils that, although it is true that they would not receive the funds directly, the matter would have a very simple solution, which I understand we will adopt the rest of the island councils and could well adopt the Cabildo of Gran Canaria. That is, to be equitable with all the town councils through Municipal Cooperation Plans, so that they receive in investment and employment projects in their respective municipal districts, more funds than they would correspond with REF criteria. We will have resources for this because I insist that all the islands would have more funds, their own plus those of the government.
It is very good to preach that one flees from the insular dispute, but it would be better to practice it instead of doing just the opposite for pure insular frontism when mathematics do not deceive.
Pedro M. San Ginés Gutiérrez is the president of the Cabildo of Lanzarote
