The first measure adopted by the new Government of the Canary Islands was to reduce taxes for the wealthiest, eliminating the inheritance and donation tax, a measure that primarily benefits those who receive inheritances above 1.2 million euros per person, that is, a very small percentage of Canarians. The second measure, this time of an internal nature, consists of substantially increasing the size, and consequently the expenses, of the Executive; 26 more senior positions than the previous one and an increase, also, of 22 new advisor positions: a total, therefore, of 48, with a total cost exceeding 3.8 million euros per year. And it is carried out by the same people who criticized the previous Executive for having, as they said, excessive positions.
Regarding the first point, the elimination of the inheritance and donation tax, a measure that benefits 0.3% of the population, will result in a reduction of income of around 40 million euros, which, in application of the fiscal rules, implies that the Canary Islands will have 80 million less in the next Community budgets for 2024, double what its current Government announced. Applying measures, moreover, that do not serve to lower inflation or to give more resources to families. They only contribute to making the rich richer.
It is necessary to insist on the need to achieve a progressive taxation system in which those who have more contribute more and that decisively contributes to consolidating a more balanced, equitable and just society. This is, moreover, the only way to have a strong state, capable of guaranteeing fundamental public services and the necessary infrastructure, as well as strengthening the safety of people and their property against fires or floods, disasters that, with the Climate Crisis, are increasing in frequency and devastating power, as has been observed throughout the world.
In relation to the second aspect, it could be thought that, along the way, between the previous and the current regional legislature, there have been dizzying changes that forced drastic decisions regarding the composition of the Government. And that new tasks have arisen and expanded powers that require significantly increasing the management structures, whether they are ministries, deputy ministries, general directorates or advisory services in the interest of greater efficiency. I can assure you that none of that is happening, that the real motivations are others.
Without diagnosis
The explanation for this considerable expansion of the conservative Canarian Executive is much simpler. It is not linked to the operability in management and the capacity to try to offer a more adequate response to the different problems that affect the Islands and their citizens. Nor is it the result of a deep planning after a precise diagnosis regarding the weaknesses and strengths of the inherited governmental structure.
None of that. It is, plainly and simply, a deliberate process aimed at placing as many people as possible from CC and the PP. Even generating management centers for this purpose with hardly any functions or powers, as we will see as the legislature progresses. Some groups, such as the Union of Professionals and Self-Employed Workers of the Canary Islands, have already denounced the duplications in the new structure of the Executive in relation to self-employment.
Placement company
A few days ago, PP leaders on the island of La Palma accused CC of turning the island council of La Palma into "a placement company", denouncing the expansion, in their opinion completely unnecessary, of island directors. And pointing out that this significantly increased the salary costs of an island corporation in which Coalición has an absolute majority, with eleven councilors in the government group.
The criticism of the popular palmeros - who assure that "the human resources area of CC" works perfectly and "does not stop increasing public spending with absolutely dispensable hiring of personnel related to its acronym" - would be perfectly valid, yes, on a much larger scale, to what has been happening in the Government of the Canary Islands. With the difference that in the Canarian Executive in the "placement company" several parties participate, also the PP, and the costs are substantially higher.
Of course, governments can be restructured according to the needs and priorities of the legislature. The PP is doing it wherever it governs with Vox, eliminating the departments linked to the implementation of equality policies between women and men and the fight against gender violence; or those involved in the fight against the climate crisis. And replacing them with others to support hunting or promote bullfighting.
A very different circumstance is that these departmental modifications in autonomous communities and local corporations are undoubtedly causing a profound social setback, which constitute a serious concession to those who detest advances in women's rights or to deniers of climate change and its consequences for the planet. And that they represent an evident submission of the PP to the most reactionary postulates of the Spanish extreme right.
Excessive and unjustified
But let's go back to the Canary Islands. At the beginning of the previous legislature, the Executive of which I was vice president and Minister of Finance, Budgets and European Affairs carried out a restructuring in different areas to respond to the central policies of the Pact of Progress, without increasing the spending of the Executive and only proceeding to the salary increases to which we were obliged by law. Not like now, in which it is occurring
an excessive and unjustified expansion, both in councilors and in deputy councilors, general directors or commissioners, as well as in advisor positions, as if the problems were solved by multiplying the departments and management positions.
Globally, the conservative Government grows by 21% compared to its progressive predecessor. It goes from 114 to 140 senior positions, an increase of 26, supported by the creation of two new ministries, an increase of nine deputy ministries and an even greater one in general directorates and commissioners. And it goes from 108 to 130 eventuals (advisors). With an average of 80,000 euros per position/year, it represents an increase that exceeds 3.8 million euros compared to the previous Executive, which, by the way, was also quadripartite, but much more austere and less clientelistic.
We already know the first decisions of the Canarian Government of the two rights: lowering taxes for the richest and unnecessarily increasing the number of senior positions in the Executive, two regressive measures. Now they are trying to hide behind the usual budgetary deviations that occur in all exercises in services such as health to justify their intention to establish cuts in education, health or dependency. Cuts fully in line with the conservative neoliberal doctrine, submissive to minority elites and aggressive towards the most vulnerable. Incapable of betting on what benefits the vast majority: advancing towards a more just, balanced and equitable society.
