"It had to be Clavijo and Coalición Canaria who restored to Gran Canaria what Nueva Canarias stole from it"
Let me begin by stating my fondness for the island of Gran Canaria, contrary to the widespread belief that those of us from Lanzarote have a certain affection for the other capital island. I don't know if it's because my father's eight siblings and about thirty cousins live there as "emigrants," or rather because I had the opportunity to study in Gran Canaria and get to know it firsthand as the most complete island in the Canary Islands, landscape-wise, and its people as those who, in general, enjoy the best sense of humor.
But focusing on the reason for this article, the fact is that the insularist drift in which Nueva Canarias (NC) has embarked for a long time is very worrying, and it has reached its maximum expression on account of the distribution of FDCAN funds.
The president of the Cabildo of Gran Canaria, Antonio Morales, is right in saying that these resources should have been distributed at least as REF funds, in such a way that the Government of the Canary Islands reserved 42%, with the remaining 58% corresponding to the islands. Specifically, 34.6 million euros is what would correspond to Gran Canaria with that criterion, no more and no less. Pure arithmetic. It happens that the president of the Government of the Canary Islands agreed to also distribute his 42% to the islands through what came to be called the Canary Islands Development Fund (FDCAN), in such a way that all the islands, without exception, would benefit. It is true that especially the islands that suffer from double insularity, in a gesture of solidarity unprecedented in the history of the Canary Islands and that in reality affects only an infinitesimal part of the budgets of the autonomous community.
This solidarity approach was accepted and understood by all the presidents of the Cabildo except that of Gran Canaria - despite obtaining more resources than those to which it was entitled as an island - who tried to impose on the Government what it should also do with its part. However, after a long process, a proposal was submitted to the Governing Council that granted the whole of Gran Canaria more than 45 million euros per year from the FDCAN, that is, much more than those 34 million to which it is strictly entitled.
Well, the fact is that the insularist drift of NC was such that not only did they reject this proposal that they claimed was insufficient for Gran Canaria, but paradoxically they presented an alternative proposal that obtained the support of the rest of the parties in the opposition in the regional chamber, in addition to the PSOE then in the Government, which left Gran Canaria with barely 13 million euros per year - again pure verifiable arithmetic - compared to the more than 45 million it had; and it did so by depriving all the islands precisely of the right we have as REF funds, which NC supposedly defended so much, attributing to the Government approximately twice that 42% that at most would correspond to it, and all under the pretext of social needs that they completely forgot when they attended the FCDAN claiming triple.
From the outside, it is observed with concern how since Nueva Gran Canaria split from CC, there have been many "insular leaders" who have made the insular dispute and the most rancid insularism their reason for political being, and what is worse, they are precisely those responsible for this nonsense and disastrous result for the interests of Gran Canaria itself - had their proposal prospered - who accuse the rest of the islands and presidents of being the insularists. "Even the rabbit bit my dog" says the wise proverb, and it seems complicated to me to build a new Canary Islands with these old policies that at heart betray the insularist origin of the party incorporated into its DNA in its original name, "Nueva Gran Canaria."
In short, I have no doubt that the president of NC and its insularist leaders will continue to vociferate against the president of the Government and Coalición Canaria as the worst scourge of this land - I hope I am wrong because I continue to dream of nationalist unity - but the truth is that it had to be Clavijo himself and his Governing Council - already with Coalición Canaria alone - who finally restored to Gran Canaria the more than 40 million euros per year that Nueva Canarias had stolen from it in its grotesque insularist drift. For that reason, and for no other reason, NC and the Cabildo of Gran Canaria also signed the FDCAN agreement yesterday, because they may be manipulators and demagogues, but they are not fools and they know that Gran Canaria has also won despite them.
Pedro M. San Ginés Gutiérrez , president of the Cabildo of Lanzarote
