That the State Government does not recognize the unique fact of the Canary Islands should not be, in any case, a surprise to those of us who inhabit these eight islands. But the fact that we are - to our regret - accustomed to this reality being systematically overlooked does not mean that we should surrender to the evidence, nor stop fighting for what is fair. Justice and equality. Two concepts that, when used inappropriately, can lose strength, but that, when said by a Canary Islander, make perfect sense. Because it is not simply a matter of asking, as is sometimes misrepresented in an interested way. It is about remembering, again and again, as many times as necessary, that the Canary Islands are the southern border of Europe, the territory furthest from the Spanish State. A place where two million souls live, and for the simple fact of being born and living here, everything has cost us twice as much as our fellow citizens.
With this undeniable reality ahead, the nationalist deputies of the Canary Islands have gone, legislature after legislature, for three decades, to the Congress of Deputies, with the inescapable duty and the firm conviction to make their lordships see why it is necessary for us to be there.
The Canarian nationalists, in the last 30 years, have had to fight in Congress for each budget item, each agreement, each reform of the Economic and Fiscal Regime. Meanwhile, the rest of the archipelago's deputies have behaved in one way or another depending on whether their party was in government or in opposition. Faced with the rest of the Canarian representatives of other parties, our position is immovable, whoever governs, as the newspaper archives demonstrate and, above all, as reality demonstrates.
We Canarian nationalists are satisfied that with this new Government of the Canary Islands progress has been made in the regulation of the fiscal aspects of the REF and in the upcoming approval of the economic aspects. But we are not going to allow it to become a dead letter. That is what it means to be a Canarian deputy in Madrid.
Being a deputy from the Canary Islands is not going to Madrid to raise your hand in silence. It is not being complicit in the mistreatment of the islands. Being a deputy from the Canary Islands in Madrid is saying, loud and clear, that there is a European land that is two thousand kilometers away and that the Government of the day forgets day after day.
Being a Canarian deputy in Madrid is remembering, as many times as necessary, that there are no trains on our islands and that the railways are the roads, which is where public transport circulates. And it is denouncing that, while in the Peninsula thousands of millions have been spent on building the best high-speed network in Europe, in the Canary Islands investments in roads have been dismantled, because, despite the needs detected by the Minister of Public Works, what is intended to be invested only covers part of the accumulated deficit, which prevents us from completing the works already started and creating employment.
Being a Canarian deputy in Madrid is denouncing that investments in tourist infrastructures have been abandoned, the Coastal Agreement has been eliminated, an insignificant item has been left in the Hydraulic Works Agreement. And that airport policies are based on the interests of continental airports, despite the surplus of the island airports.
It is insisting on the need for our agricultural sector to be taken into account and for collaboration, once and for all, with the POSEI items.
The Secretary General of the Popular Party in the Canary Islands himself has surrendered to the evidence and has declared that the General State Budgets, to which we have presented an amendment to the entirety that has been rejected, are not the budgets that we Canary Islanders need. Now, we have to wait for the PP to comply with the Economic and Fiscal Regime, comply with the investment agreements and provide the Comprehensive Employment Plan for the Canary Islands in the process of partial amendments.
Justice and equality for the Canary Islands. No more, no less than what corresponds to us.
Ana María Oramas, Deputy of Coalición Canaria-Nueva Canarias