It’s been over a month since Pedro Sanchez met the president of the Canary Islands, Fernando Clavijoand promised aid of at least 50 million euros to alleviate the migration crisis facing the archipelago. However, despite the urgency, the central government has not yet received the money and has not initiated the necessary procedures to achieve it.
As Canarian government sources confirm to this newspaper, the Central Executive has not yet met with the regional authorities to specify the exact amount of aid, which depends on the Treasury. Of course, the revenue didn’t happen either.
After the first attempt to reform the rule before the summer failed, Sánchez met with Clavijo in La Palma on August 23. During this meeting, the leader of the Executive promised to inject aid of at least 50 million euros, the final amount of which should be fixed in the coming days.
As the Minister of Territorial Policy explains, Angel Victor Torresin the general budgets of 2022 and 2023, two amendments of 50 million euros each were included to serve migrant minors. Since there were no budgets for 2024, this situation could not be resolved by an amendment and the executive promised similar aid for this year.
At the same Torres press conference, Clavijo explained that the Canary Islands government considered this aid insufficient and that the amount should be “much greater.” He argued that the situation is much more serious than it was in 2022 and 2023. And that was it.
“Nothing, there has been no progress,” the Canarian government now explains, more than a month later. “We have requested these meetings, but they have not yet been granted. There have been some minor discussions about it, but We haven’t sat down yet and we don’t know when they will want us to.“, they add.
From the Ministry of Territorial Policy of Ángel Víctor Torres, they assure that it is a commitment “that will be fulfilled” even with the expanded budgets, and confirm that the 50 million is the base. However, they do not know when the meeting will take place or what the final figure will be, because “the figures are managed by the Treasury”.
This newspaper consulted the Ministry of Finance on this situation and the response was that the amount is “awaiting transfer from the relevant ministry”. The department headed by María Jesús Montero makes no reference to whether there will be meetings or whether the amount will be 50 million or more.
Meetings for Immigration
Both within the Canary Islands Government and within the PP, there is the feeling that the Treasury is betting on immobility regarding the situation of minors in the Canaries. For weeks, they have accused the minister of not releasing funds for this aid and of not sending the economic report necessary for reforming the immigration law.
But on that subject, things could change this week. The tragedy that occurred last Saturday in El Hierro, after the sinking of a boat with at least 84 people on board, of which only 27 survived, prompted the different parties to resume negotiations to reform the immigration law.
The central government, the PP and the government of the Canary Islands are have conversations to try to reach an agreementafter the failure of the reform before the summer and after a meeting with the spokesperson of the PP, Miguel Telladoand the Minister of Territorial Policy, Ángel Víctor Torres, did so in August and that, despite reaching a certain agreement, it came to nothing.
The conversations resume what was worked on at the August meeting and discuss the quota of migrant minors that the rest of the autonomous communities will assume, the funds they will receive to face the reception and the limit from which the State will take care of minors. in each region.
Sources from the different parties confirm that the meetings They are carried out very discreetly to avoid media pressure. They consider that if too much emphasis is placed on the issue, it could make negotiations difficult and cause a certain weariness of the actors, which is why they prefer to present the agreement when it is concluded.
However, this is what already happened during the August meeting which ended in failure. The parties reached some kind of prior agreement and the only thing missing was an economic document from the Ministry of Finance which never arrived.
