The unanimity expressed by the Parliament of the Canary Islands regarding the reform of the fiscal aspects of the Economic and Fiscal Regime of the Canary Islands (REF) should be the prelude to the consensus that will be necessary to undertake the debate that will open to modify the most important leg - the economic one - of the norm that was born to provide the Islands with the necessary instruments to compete on equal terms as in the continental territory.
After its approval by the Council of Ministers and the favorable report of the Regional Chamber, the fiscal reform of the REF is transferred to the Congress and the Senate, where it will predictably be ratified by all groups, with the possible exception of those who, in the drift of their discourse, continue to bet on the application in the Canary Islands of the same policies as in the Peninsula.
The new REF block, which will allow obtaining tax benefits to create employment, which incorporates a new deduction for investments in West Africa or which consolidates incentives for innovation and film productions, is a success for all, without exception, as explained by the Minister of Economy, Javier González Ortiz, given that it opens the door that will promote the creation of jobs and improve the competitiveness of the Canary Islands economy.
After two years of negotiations, in which it has been necessary to combine the same criteria on three sides, in intense debates in which the European Commission, the Government of the Canary Islands and the Government of the State have participated, an important step has been taken to close an essential agreement to incorporate into the REF those instruments that will contribute to opening new avenues of oxygen for an economy suffocated by the crisis but, above all, by the mistakes of those who, in these last three years, have reduced opportunities for the Canary Islands productive sectors.
It has been a process that many have defined as "historic for the Canary Islands", perhaps because we have become accustomed to consensuses being the exception in political life, but it is insufficient if the REF, in addition to tax aid, is not provided with measures in that part that, until now, has been the least developed and that, paradoxically, contains all the keys to guarantee equality with the rest of the territory not only in economic matters but in issues that affect our daily lives, such as the resident travel discount, the subsidy for water desalination, the compensation for the extra cost of energy, the aid to reduce the extra cost of transporting goods or the bonuses for transportation by bus
However, for this to be the case, for the legal structure that, at the time, was forged with political vision so that we had the same options as the rest of the Spaniards to be completed in the Canary Islands, will is needed and, above all, that the economic aspects that are reflected in the second part of the REF reform are fulfilled by the State. Or, at least, that if we want to continue building a State project together, as King Felipe VI demanded in his Christmas message, singularities are respected
It is useless, for example, that several articles of the REF oblige the State to make an annual investment in the Islands equivalent, at least, to the average of the rest of the territories, if it is subsequently breached, year after year, in the Budgets approved by the Government in the Cortes Generales.
Often, especially those who now boast of having reached an agreement on the fiscal part, accuse us of being selfish, of always putting the interests of the Canary Islands before those of other Autonomous Communities. It has never been like that, we have never asked for more than what corresponds to us, but we will continue to claim what belongs to us due to our special status as an archipelago far from the continent.
The architecture that must protect those of us who are different cracks every time rights that are inalienable are ignored. We, despite the fact that some continue to label us as victims, will continue fighting so that the State does not forget in its decisions that, above its partisan interests, there are geographical realities that cannot be ignored in the name of adjustments that, as I mentioned last week, are often political decisions.
The real journeys begin when the roads end. The tourist record that will be registered in 2014 has contributed to alleviating the crisis that is experienced in the Islands, but it is not enough. The crisis has revealed that the paths through which the Canary Islands economy must travel are different. And many of those routes, some unexplored, are precisely in the most complex, but most necessary, part of a REF that will be lame if we do not manage to specify in the economic part the same consensus sealed in the fiscal aspects.
Ana Oramas, deputy of Coalición Canaria
