The subsidy for the transport of goods: bad news for Lanzarote

June 7 2017 (16:43 WEST)

The subsidy for the transport of goods between islands is a tool used by the State Government with the aim of reducing the effective cost of maritime and air transport of goods between the Canary Islands. After the approval of the General State Budgets, this goes from being an average of 50% to reaching 100% of it, allocating an item of approximately 92 million euros for this purpose, so the transport of goods between the Canary Islands is carried out for the first time in the democratic history of this Archipelago at no cost to the company.

Despite the surprising triumphalism with which the representatives in Lanzarote of the political parties that raised their hands to approve the General State Budgets, that is, the Canarian Coalition, New Canarias, Citizens and the Popular Party, have sold this measure, the reality is that there is very little to celebrate.

Formal equality is very rarely accompanied by material equality, and this is not one of them. The 100% subsidy for the transport of goods between the islands deepens the existing inequalities in the Archipelago, exacerbating the ties of dependence of Lanzarote and the rest of the non-capital islands, with the economies of Tenerife and especially Gran Canaria.

Thus, agricultural and industrial fabrics of greater dimensions, such as the Gran Canarian and Tenerife ones with almost eight times more demand, with better connections, more sophisticated infrastructures, and therefore much more competitive in price, would now be without any type of restriction to see their potential market expanded without practically increasing the cost. With this measure, and as an example, it could happen that a cheese made by a company from Gran Canaria in Gran Canaria is much cheaper than a cheese made by a company from Fuerteventura in Fuerteventura, or that the onion grown in Gran Canaria is half the price of the one in Lanzarote, in a Lanzarote fruit shop.

The subsidy for the transport of goods is the best example of a failed policy in terms of bonuses and subsidies that, instead of reducing costs and leveling territories, increases profit margins and exacerbates inequalities.

It seems insulting that some want to disguise this measure as a reduction in the price of the shopping basket, when experience tells us that in Lanzarote, with the subsidy for the transport of goods operating at 50% since 2012, the shopping basket has been and is, although now to a lesser extent (and not thanks to any subsidy), one of the most expensive in all the Canary Islands and also in the entire Spanish State.

A calm debate would be appropriate on how to fiscally and economically protect island economies, promoting internal and inter-island markets between non-capital islands, to generate more employment and wealth in them, we could even talk about reflecting the double insularity, with which some falsely fill their mouths when talking about the electoral system, in some of the instruments of the REF.

However, faced with that, we find the policy of broad strokes, made on the spur of the moment and teleguided from the power centers of the negotiating parties, which demonstrate profound ignorance and tremendous lack of solidarity with the rest of the Canarians.

The 100% transport subsidy is a direct obstacle to the agricultural, business and industrial fabric of Lanzarote that affects small and medium-sized companies on this island with special virulence, harming our domestic market, and largely turning us into a captive economy and closely dependent on Gran Canaria and Tenerife.

For this reason, it is not worrying that the political representatives of those islands of the parties that supported the PGE are celebrating it in style, what causes amazement is to see how the Canarian Coalition, New Canarias, Citizens and the Popular Party in Lanzarote applaud this measure without blushing, with the incomprehensible silence of the island's employers, and continue to act as branches and attorneys of the capital islands, even though they are decidedly against the people of Lanzarote.

By Borja Rubio, Somos councilor in Arrecife

 

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