¨Legislating for entrepreneurs". This is the solution that the Government of the Canary Islands has found to alleviate the effects of the crisis in our land, understanding that the modification of the rules that until now have governed our territory will generate an improvement in living conditions in the Islands. Nothing could be further from reality. Those who will improve, those who will fill their pockets again will be the big businessmen, who are the ones who have inspired the Land Law, resurrecting the developmental paradigms that marked the so-called economic miracle of the 70s and 80s, and that completely transformed, through urban speculation, the environment and landscape of the Canary Islands.
This bill, to which Clavijo has given himself body and soul, is touched before it is born. Only those parties that defend the interests of a minority support this rule, and it is not for less because the Land Law contributes to consolidating mechanisms such as the RIC. Investment in land will therefore be allowed again, favoring speculation.
Podemos has been facing the Land Law for months, and now that its parliamentary processing has begun, we will continue to oppose a text that bets on that old developmentalism, and that under the statement of "wanting to overcome the current regulatory tangle" what it really hides is a true deregulation of the territory and an authentic regression in territorial matters.
President Clavijo, with this rule, reproduces the recipe of neoliberalism, reducing legislation on planning to a minimum. He also uses the municipalities as an excuse to weaken the role of the regional and island administrations, betting on a model of "business projects" and not of "urban plans". In fact, one of the arguments that is most used to defend it is that there are billions waiting to be invested, just as there are thousands of new jobs waiting to be created. However, citizens no longer believe in these miraculous recipes because they are the same ones that they promised with, for example, the port of Granadilla or the Insular Ring.
In addition, the Land Law opens the ban on 'anything goes' on rustic land by allowing a large series of economic activities that are not typical of this type of land, which distort traditional agricultural activity, opening the door to deregulation of the primary sector, but also threatening the protected natural spaces of our land.
Another consequence of this suicidal rule is that it will compromise the stability of municipal public coffers, because the control of planning and its environmental assessment will require the hiring of new technical teams in each municipality and island council, multiplying the staff of the administrations without previously analyzing its viability, while at the same time distorting the role that COTMAC has as a tool for social cohesion.
Podemos does not believe in this model of economic development to which President Clavijo is leading us with the Land Law. To grow, we believe that we must not embrace developmentalism but take steps towards food and energy sovereignty, towards the promotion of R&D&I, while at the same time protecting our natural spaces, developing green corridors that ensure their conservation, and improving the tourist infrastructures that we already have, without preying on more land, betting on quality over quantity. In short, a change in the productive model, which allows us to get out of cheap sun and beach tourism, not to affect it. To do other different policies, not to repeat the same mistakes.
It is in the hands of Mr. Clavijo to prevent the Land Law from causing irreparable damage in the Canary Islands. It is in the hands of Mr. Clavijo to bet on the sustainability of our land, and not on speculation and developmentalism. It is in his hands to attend to the interests of all the Canarians, and not only those of a privileged few.
Noemí Santana, Spokesperson for the Podemos Parliamentary Group
