Wine sector producers are facing a critical situation. In this case, it is not the generalized economic crisis that has generated it. Even worse.
The origin lies in the apathy and irresponsibility exercised by the current Government of the Canary Islands, or better expressed, its political leaders and more specifically the Ministry of Agriculture, led by Juan Ramón Hernández, who has displayed a neglect and abandonment, for three years, of the updating of the data collected in the Viticultural Registry of the Canary Islands, generating serious economic damages for the sector by leaving in suspense the reality of Lanzarote's crops and the impossibility of receiving, justly, what corresponds to them in terms of subsidies.
This is not said by the regional deputy who subscribes this article, but by its own protagonists through a letter sent to the counselor where they express that to their surprise the Viticultural Registry "has a secret character", that is, it cannot even be consulted by those affected.
This is very serious. This Canarian Government boasts of speaking in Parliament about administrative transparency and then, on the other hand, denies access to the Viticultural Registry to those affected. How can this situation be explained when even the Spanish Constitution requires publicity of the registers and archives of the public administration?
Moreover, the Regulatory Councils themselves affirm that it is a "incomplete, outdated and without an update protocol" registry. And I repeat, it is the sector itself that says so. They also denounce that "the Government of the Canary Islands is saving almost 15% of the aid, and only in Lanzarote there could be about 150 winegrowers losing thousands of euros in subsidies." We believe that the situation exceeds the limits and that from the political and legal point of view this action has a responsible person with a first and last name.
To situate ourselves, in 2012 a modification of the method was made to establish the distribution of aid and subsidies for this sector. Previously, it was done with the direct information collected by each Regulatory Council, depending on its hectares of vineyard duly contrasted with the Geographic Information System of Agricultural Parcels (SIGPAC), the only graphic record by satellite images, linked to the cadastre that exists in the Canary Islands and throughout Europe, which allows to geographically identify the parcels declared by agricultural producers, in order to grant any aid scheme related to the cultivated area
In 2014, the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock, Fisheries and Water of the Government of the Canary Islands determined an order stating that winegrowers whose cultivation areas are registered in any of the Regulatory Councils or management bodies of the Designations of Origin may be beneficiaries of the aid per hectare. It also states that in order to be entitled to the aid, the plots must be registered in the Viticultural Registry and in the Regulatory Council or management body of the corresponding Designation of Origin, and that applications must be made using the SIGPAC system.
Therefore, the Canarian Government decided to take as a reference, in addition to the SIGPAC, the so-called Viticultural Registry of the Canary Islands; but the circumstance is given that the data of the registry contain innumerable discrepancies and when crossing the data it happens that the cultivation area of some winegrowers is altered. This has been denounced by the producers of Lanzarote, but the response they have obtained is political inaction on the part of their highest responsible in the Autonomous Executive.
The Popular Party has transferred this complaint to the Parliament of the Canary Islands, with the unanimous support of all political groups. The counselor already has the task to solve this duplication of data. He has no more excuses.
*Astrid Pérez, regional deputy of the Popular Party
