The Government of Spain is trying to obtain air corridors from its British counterpart for the Balearic and Canary archipelagos, a negotiation that has already received unjustified criticism from the ranks of the Popular Party (PP). It was the Deputy Secretariat of Communication of the popular party that questioned the attempt to save only both archipelagos from the quarantine imposed by the United Kingdom, something that challenges us islanders and leads us to resort to the basic manual that we always carry with us so that the insular fact is understood. It seems that this is the case.
Both archipelagos are physically separated from the peninsular territory. This circumstance alone should be enough for anyone with a brain to understand that the Balearic Islands and the Canary Islands require unique solutions. If we keep the pandemic at bay and we are among the best records among the Spanish autonomous communities, if our economies, companies and jobs are highly dependent on tourism, and if we are far from the main focus of the pandemic, it makes no sense to subject ourselves to the same measures as the peninsular territory. It's that simple.
In my case, I represent two islands in the Senate, Lanzarote and La Graciosa, located in an Atlantic archipelago in which its outermost character concurs, in addition to the territorial fragmentation that characterizes the Canary Islands. It seems that we Canarians have to remind these Spanish conservatives that privileges are not being claimed, but rather exceptional measures to combat distance and fragmentation, and to try to alleviate the devastating economic and social consequences caused by the pandemic.
The Canary Archipelago has had a differentiated treatment that recognizes the Canarian singularities since Spain joined the European Union (EU), and that is included in the treaties. The outermost regions are a group of territories belonging to three member states of the Union (Spain, France and Portugal) that are separated by thousands of kilometers and located geographically in different seas and oceans. But we have common problems because we face persistent and combined difficulties that hinder our socioeconomic development: great distance, insularity, reduced surface area, complex orography and high economic dependence.
Therefore, we are not facing a whim, but rather a situation of disadvantage compared to the rest of the continental territory of the EU. For all this, the PP's tantrum is incomprehensible with the fact that the Government of Spain wants an exception for the Canary Islands in the United Kingdom's decision to subject people from Spain to quarantine. As things stand, it seems that we islanders are obliged to remind the PP that "Canary Islands are not the same" as the Peninsula, paraphrasing Alejandro Sanz's song, so as not to resort to the famous phrase of Clinton's advisor "it's the Canary Islands, stupid" instead of "it's the economy, stupid".
Fco. Manuel Fajardo Palarea, PSOE senator for Lanzarote and La Graciosa.
