Autumn has just arrived and in the Canary Islands we are all starting to handle an equation with two variables: the public health of the population and the winter tourist season, which will begin in a few weeks. When I say everyone, I don't exclude anyone, from public administrations to tourism companies, to unemployed workers affected by temporary employment regulation files. In the Canary Islands we trust in the immediate future because we have a lot at stake. Everything, really.
For this very reason, we have conspired to guarantee public health, because without it it is not possible to recover economic activity and employment. I sincerely believe that, in this, each party is fulfilling its responsibility, which allows us to face the coming months with moderate optimism. Safe public health in the Canary Islands is synonymous with safe tourism during the autumn and winter, as long as the epidemiological situation improves in the issuing countries, as is natural.
The tourism business association is moving in this same direction, defending the implementation of safe corridors to reactivate tourism and avoid the loss of the winter season. Indeed, I agree with the business association in the proposal to start a pilot project with the Canary Islands immediately, which could provide solutions for those destinations that achieve the established health objectives to implement their own corridors, regardless of the tourist segment where they are located.
From my point of view, for the operation to be successful, coordination is essential to carry out reliable and rapid health tests on travelers, both upon entering and leaving airports and other means of transport. Only in this way, with security, could quarantines and negative recommendations that endanger the winter season and the survival of many companies and jobs be avoided, both in the Islands and in the Peninsula.
But, we must not lose sight of the fact that guaranteeing public health and launching the winter tourist season will allow us to face with better expectations the Plan for the Social and Economic Reactivation of the Canary Islands, which foresees an initial investment of 5,725.7 million euros until 2023, only in public resources. In the way it is being done, with unity and broad public-private consensus, we will defeat the pandemic and strengthen basic services, such as health, education, social rights and housing, so that no one is left behind by this unexpected and global crisis, especially the most vulnerable groups.
Guaranteeing the public health of the population and starting the winter season with unity and broad public-private consensus is what is also appreciated in Lanzarote and La Graciosa, the two islands to which I owe myself in the first place. The joint and coordinated efforts of the Cabildo of Lanzarote and the seven town councils, and the fluid dialogue and close collaboration that is observed at this time between the public sector and tourism organizations is a path that should allow us to overcome this adversity, and that should never be abandoned, while we keep the Centers of Art, Culture and Tourism open as a powerful symbol of collective hope.
Fco. Manuel Fajardo Palarea, PSOE senator for Lanzarote and La Graciosa.